Chris is out this week, so the preliminary is solely mine. Which means it's apt to be crazy. If you want it to be not-crazy, you should give me not-crazy arguments. If you want it to be more crazy, you should give me more-crazy (but convincing) arguments. As usual, I'll submit the final ballot in the morning, so get your comments in tonight.

1. Alabama

2. Oregon

3. Kansas State

4. Notre Dame

K-State has still probably done the most, but Alabama's win in Death Stadium is pretty impressive, and Oregon can score on anybody. The world needs Alabama/Oregon. I feel bad for K-State and ND, but the world needs Alabama/Oregon. I do think Notre Dame is a little underrated after yesterday. Matt Hinton compared them yesterday to the 2002 Ohio State team. Ridiculous defense, plays to level of competition, gets a lot of close and/or lucky wins. That team beat a juggernaut in the title game, and I wouldn't be shocked if Notre Dame could too. But I still wouldn't take them over the first three.

5. LSU

6. Georgia

7. Florida State

8. Florida

9. South Carolina

10. Oklahoma

11. Oregon State

12. Texas A&M

13. Stanford

14. Louisville

15. Clemson

This might be two groups smashed together, but I'm not sure where the dividing line is. Yeah, I moved LSU up after a loss, what of it? Nobody else has come remotely close to Alabama this season. Also moved Georgia up and they thrashed an Ole Miss team that was competitive against Alabama and Texas A&M. This is probably the most the Bulldogs have impressed me all season. 10-14 all exceeded expectations modestly (all won, all covered, none played a good team), but I think Texas A&M did enough to nip Stanford for #12. Clemson moves into this group on account of being the only team in the 15-20 range last week who didn't lose. Which means 16-20 this week is going to be a mite tricky.

16. UCLA

17. Nebraska

18. Southern Cal

19. Texas

Here are your BCS conference teams that have underwhelmed but done some good things. UCLA has a nasty loss to Cal, but they crushed Arizona and beat Nebraska. Nebraska and Texas are also 7-2. Both Nebraska's losses are on the road to ranked teams. Texas has a loss to unranked West Virginia but a road win over Texas Tech. Southern Cal has three losses and no good wins, but unlike Texas, they haven't been beaten by ten jillion in any of those games.

20. Louisiana Tech

21. Texas Tech

22. Toledo

23. Utah State

24. Northern Illinois

25. Cincinnati

Our favorite non-BCS (and Big East) conference teams, plus Texas Tech, who drops with a loss to Texas but still has three pretty solid wins (TCU, West Virginia, Iowa State).

Consideration pile: you tell me.