It's about that time, isn't it? The BlogPoll is back, and I'm not sure why Joel let me have the helm (hey, what's that rock doing out there? Let's get closer!) but here we are. Let's cover the particular changes first:
- It's all in the timing. Brian Cook is stepping down running the BlogPoll this year, which means we're moving the schedule up a tick. Final ballots are now due in on Monday instead of Wednesday, which means on our end that we're looking at a preliminary ballot on Sunday before a final submission on Monday morning. What does that mean here? I'll need feedback by Sunday night, ideally before ... *throws dart* um, 8:30? Yeah, 8:30.
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Adjusting our sheet. We know the handy-dandy Excel sheet that did most of our initial thinking last year, and we know how badly we had to mess with it last year. I'd rather not go through that again this year (for one, the timeline is going to make it difficult to do much other than sit here and constantly play with the factors all day Sunday; for another, I'd just rather not do that - let's hear it for benevolent dictatorship!), but here's what I'm thinking: we'll take the first 2-3 weeks to hash out what we want the sheet to look like, and then we'll go with the finished product for the rest of the season to serve as the basis. The other benefit of this approach? The sheet's kind of useless the first couple of weeks, anyway.
- Defense wins championships. Last year was weird; generally speaking, I'll trust the defense before I'll trust the offense when it comes to predicting who'll win it all. (That doesn't mean I'm not going to enjoy the tar out of Tyler Bray, mind you.)
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The schedule provides. I'm not super-concerned with projecting where a team will be at the end of the year, but I am concerned about getting their performance so far right.
- The Holy Grail: I've located a functional copy of MATLAB. Stat geeks rejoice!
Now that we've gotten that out of the way: let's make it up as we go, shall we?
- Alabama
- Oklahoma
- Wisconsin
- Oregon
- Boise State
- Stanford
- LSU
- South Carolina
- Nebraska
- TCU
- Texas A&M
- Florida State
- Michigan State
- Notre Dame
- Oklahoma State
- Virgina Tech
- Ohio State
- Mississippi State
- Arkansas
- Georgia
- West Virginia
- Missouri
- Arizona State
- Miami
- North Carolina
So yeah, that's one heck of a hot mess, ain't it? My thoughts are below the jump, and yours are more than welcome.
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The undisputed: Alabama. Remember point 3 from above, and also remember this team looks just a bit like the 2009 team. If I'm doing my math correctly (2009 team - Terrance Cody), that means we're due for a 12-10 win there, right? In all seriousness, their only hole is a passing game that can be described as a meek shrug, and that may change.
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The contenders: Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Oregon. I feel reasonably confident here (I'm not sure why Wisconsin is hanging out near 10 in the AP/USA Today polls, but I'm chalking it up to being, well, the AP/USA Today polls); they're the most complete teams out of what's left and unlike others ('sup, Boise?) they won't get scheduled out of the BCS Championship Game. However, they do have questions that need answering.
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The almost-contenders: Boise State, Stanford, LSU, South Carolina. All good, but not quite as good as the guys right above them and not quite as bad as the guys below them. So we'll put 'em in a blender and see what happens. The order feels basically right, though I wouldn't be averse to bumping South Carolina up a notch to 7. That being said, I'm also reasonably confident at some point this year I'm going to want to drop LSU out of the poll entirely. The week after that, they'll beat a top-10 team.
- The mosh pit: Nebraska, TCU, Texas A&M, Florida State, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Oklahoma State, Virginia Tech, Ohio State, Mississippi State. There's something I don't trust with all of these teams, so the order doesn't make much difference. Generally, the initial order is loosely based on past performance, although that begs the question of what A&M and Michigan State are doing up this high and you know what let's just move on. I need to see all these teams in action to make any sense of them, and I'm not averse to bumping someone from the bottom to the top, or vice versa. That being said, Ohio State's near the bottom, and I think VT is as well.
- The five-way car crash: Arkansas, Georgia, WVU, Missouri, Arizona State. At some point this season, all these teams will be a glorious mess. I just hope it happens all at the same time, because then I get to make sense of these teams and oh man-
- The offseason victors: Miami, North Carolina. For one, I ran out of ideas, and for another, we really should preserve their offseasons for history's sake, shouldn't we?
Other teams I'm thinking about: Florida, Texas, Southern Miss, Houston. Other teams I'm absolutely not thinking about: USC, Auburn.
Let's get at it.