As I said at the begining of the year: Hey, Kool-Aid!
| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | South Florida |
 2 |
| 2 | LSU |
 1 |
| 3 | Ohio State |
2 |
| 4 | Boston College | -- |
| 5 | Oklahoma |
4 |
| 6 | California |
4 |
| 7 | Oregon |
1 |
| 8 | South Carolina | -- |
| 9 | Kentucky |
3 |
| 10 | Kansas |
7 |
| 11 | Auburn |
13 |
| 12 | Florida |
8 |
| 13 | Arizona State |
3 |
| 14 | Missouri |
7 |
| 15 | Southern Cal |
2 |
| 16 | Virginia Tech |
6 |
| 17 | West Virginia |
6 |
| 18 | Penn State |
8 |
| 19 | Tennessee |
3 |
| 20 | Michigan |
6 |
| 21 | Cincinnati |
7 |
| 22 | Kansas State |
4 |
| 23 | Texas Tech |
3 |
| 24 | Georgia |
1 |
| 25 | Hawaii |
4 |
As you can see, there's no Florida State, which means Joel has the week off from BlogPollin' and yours truly is back in the driver's seat.
We start with USF, which looks really odd at the top of any poll. But, if you took the Bull logo off the gold helmets and called them Notre Dame, they'd be No. 1 easily. Brian makes an excellent case for LSU to remain at the top, and I'm willing to listen to y'all if you agree. But I don't think USF can be any lower than second with wins, ugly as they were, over Auburn and West Virginia.
I like the rest of the top ten, even with UK and KU in it. This is football, right? I'm confusing myself.
Arizona State could be higher, could be lower, I don't know much about them. Help there would be appreciated. Also, about So Cal: they have probably the greatest collection of individual talent in college football, but they sure don't play like it. They haven't looked much better than average. Part of that is because they play in a pretty good conference that we in the South don't give enough credit to, and part of it is because they've just looked average.
Tennessee at #19: homerism maybe, but if the improvements we've seen over the last couple of weeks are for real, then the Vols are playing some pretty good football. We'll find out in the next couple of weeks.
Spots 21-25 are guesswork as normal.
Thoughts? Suggestions?