After thinking the rankings through, here is this week's final BlogPoll ballot with the human overrides in place. Houston comes up, and Ohio State and Penn State sink. Iowa didn't slide, and I'll explain why in the following section. And I'm sure I've made everybody just a little disappointed, which probably means that game theory is happy.
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| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Florida | |
| 2 | Texas | |
| 3 | TCU | |
| 4 | Alabama | |
| 5 | Boise State |
 1 |
| 6 | Cincinnati |
1 |
| 7 | Georgia Tech |
3 |
| 8 | Iowa |
 3 |
| 9 | Arizona |
6 |
| 10 | Oregon |
2 |
| 11 | Pittsburgh |
2 |
| 12 | Southern Cal | |
| 13 | Miami (Florida) |
6 |
| 14 | Ohio State |
2 |
| 15 | Penn State |
6 |
| 16 | Houston | |
| 17 | Brigham Young |
1 |
| 18 | Virginia Tech |
1 |
| 19 | LSU |
8 |
| 20 | Utah |
6 |
| 21 | Oregon State | |
| 22 | Wisconsin | |
| 23 | Nebraska | |
| 24 | Oklahoma State | |
| 25 | West Virginia |
4 |
| Last week's ballot | ||
Dropped Out: Oklahoma (#20), Notre Dame (#25).
- Ohio State and Penn State fall in line behind USC and Miami partly because of the 'defense is overcompensated' issue that masks offensive problems, and partly because, out of very similar resumes, that USC > OSU deal actually makes some sense.
- Houston is the grand loser in the offense undercompensation, so they slide in to 16. Why 16? Because, after holding them up in the light against BYU, it kinda felt right to place them up there. Houston is all offense, no defense, for sure, but that offense has shown up for every game and they've only lost once. Above BYU sounds decent.
- Iowa didn't get the Big 10 boot because, despite their extreme charitability in games, they still only have that one loss. They beat Penn State on the road, and their one loss is very comparable to OSU's loss to Purdue. Any offense that can maintain composure after some of those turnover-fests is either very disciplined (good!) or too dumb to know better (in this case, good!). Oh, and the Northwestern loss came after Stanzi's injury. Isn't it fun to think that, had that not happened, Iowa may very well have won?
And yes, Oregon is ahead of Southern Cal and behind Boise State. ID-10 T check SAT.