Here is our ballot in full preseason glory. I took the comments on board from the draft and made a few tweaks.
Rocky Top Talk Ballot - Week 1
| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alabama Crimson Tide | -- |
| 2 | Boise St. Broncos | -- |
| 3 | Ohio St. Buckeyes | -- |
| 4 | Texas Longhorns | -- |
| 5 | Florida Gators | -- |
| 6 | TCU Horned Frogs | -- |
| 7 | Virginia Tech Hokies | -- |
| 8 | Oklahoma Sooners | -- |
| 9 | Iowa Hawkeyes | -- |
| 10 | Oregon Ducks | -- |
| 11 | USC Trojans | -- |
| 12 | Auburn Tigers | -- |
| 13 | Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets | -- |
| 14 | Georgia Bulldogs | -- |
| 15 | Florida St. Seminoles | -- |
| 16 | Utah Utes | -- |
| 17 | Miami Hurricanes | -- |
| 18 | Pittsburgh Panthers | -- |
| 19 | Nebraska Cornhuskers | -- |
| 20 | Stanford Cardinal | -- |
| 21 | Washington Huskies | -- |
| 22 | Cincinnati Bearcats | -- |
| 23 | Clemson Tigers | -- |
| 24 | Penn St. Nittany Lions | -- |
| 25 | Arkansas Razorbacks | -- |
SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings "
VaTech was moved up and USC bumped down a bit. Oklahoma went downward. Georgia Tech moved up and Miami went down. Cincinnati and Stanford were added at the expense of Wisconsin and South Carolina. There were a couple minor tweaks after all that, but those were the primary ones.
I'm still debating leaving USC off future ballots for one reason: BCS at-large bids for the non-BCS conferences are partially dependent on the final BCS standings. If USC happened to be high enough, their inclusion could actually knock a non-BCS team out of an auto-qualify slot. If USC's probation excludes them from bowl games, then it shouldn't hurt another program's chances at a bowl as well. But for now, I don't mind leaving them in.