Tennessee may not have impressed the coaches (who have us #29) or the Associated Press (who have us #27), but they impressed the bloggers, who voted the Vols at #24 in the BlogPoll (full results here) following the first week of the season.
Bloggers were also impressed with Alabama (imagine that), as the Tide racked up 81 of the 93 first place votes. Ten others went to #2 Southern Cal, one went to #4 Oregon, and one went to #15 Oklahoma State, because scoring 84 points in a game is hard.
The top four, as expected, are Alabama, Southern Cal, LSU, and Oregon, and Florida State rises above the crowd to grab the #5 spot, with West Virginia, Georgia, Oklahoma, Michigan State, and Clemson rounding out the top ten.
The voters at large loved West Virginia (#13 in our ballot, #6 overall), Nebraska (#21 in our ballot, #13 overall), Virginia Tech (unranked in our ballot, #16 overall), and Wisconsin (#25 in our ballot, #17 overall). On the other side of the coin, voters were down on Notre Dame (#11 in our ballot, #21 overall), TCU (#14 in our ballot, #22 overall), Utah (#18 in our ballot, unranked overall as the 28th highest voter-getter), and Ohio (#19 in our ballot, unranked overall as the 26th highest voter-getter). Additionally, Boise State, Missouri, and Baylor, ranked in the 20s by Rocky Top Talk, did not crack the poll at large. Conversely, Kansas State (#20), Tennessee (#24), and Stanford (#25) were ranked in the BlogPoll but left off the Rocky Top Talk ballot.
Follow after the jump for our full ballot and a few additional notes.
Rocky Top Talk Ballot - Week 1
Rank | Team | Delta |
---|---|---|
1 | Alabama Crimson Tide | -- |
2 | Oregon Ducks | -- |
3 | USC Trojans | -- |
4 | LSU Tigers | -- |
5 | Michigan St. Spartans | -- |
6 | Florida St. Seminoles | -- |
7 | Georgia Bulldogs | -- |
8 | Oklahoma Sooners | -- |
9 | South Carolina Gamecocks | -- |
10 | Clemson Tigers | -- |
11 | Notre Dame Fighting Irish | -- |
12 | Oklahoma St. Cowboys | -- |
13 | West Virginia Mountaineers | -- |
14 | TCU Horned Frogs | -- |
15 | Michigan Wolverines | -- |
16 | Arkansas Razorbacks | -- |
17 | Texas Longhorns | -- |
18 | Utah Utes | -- |
19 | Ohio Bobcats | -- |
20 | Louisville Cardinals | -- |
21 | Nebraska Cornhuskers | -- |
22 | Boise St. Broncos | -- |
23 | Missouri Tigers | -- |
24 | Baylor Bears | -- |
25 | Wisconsin Badgers | -- |
SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings "
- To discourage people from letting preseason biases dominate their week one poll, this is considered the first poll of a new season, and movement is not calculated. You could probably look things up and see what teams were ranked highly last week, but we're not telling. Hence all the dashes in the Delta column.
- Although Rocky Top Talk was significantly higher on a few teams than the voters at large, we did not provide the highest vote for any one team. Notre Dame, who we voted 11th, had seven top ten votes, one as high as #2. We ranked TCU 14th, providing just their fifth highest vote, as two voters placed them #9. Utah, our #17, despite being unranked in the final results, received a vote as high as #10, and Ohio, our #18, received as high as #7.
- On the other side of the coin, we were one of just three voters to eschew ranking of Virginia Tech and provided the third lowest vote for Nebraska, who we ranked #21, Braves and Birds ranked #22, and who was ranked in 90 of 91 ballots. Wisconsin, who we placed #25, was unranked on 11 ballots, and West Virginia, who we placed #13, received a vote as low as #23.
- Tennessee, who was ranked #24, received votes on 39 of 91 ballots, with four top ten votes coming from Team Speed Kills (#2), Blatant Homerism (#4), Coug Center (#6), and Tomahawk Nation (#9). We didn't rank the Vols (hooray superstition!), so don't ask me how we didn't win the Straight Bangin' Award. Has to be a mistake.
- Florida, on the other hand, our next FBS opponent, was ranked on 35 of 91 ballots but received just one top fifteen vote, #11 from Black Shoe Diaries.