Well, I accidentally submitted this poll too late to count for the overall poll (seen here), though that is probably for the best. Mine was a bit of a monstrosity. Discussion follows the poll. I’ll be back on schedule next week.
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| Rank | Team | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Florida | |
| 2 | Texas | |
| 3 | Southern Cal | |
| 4 | Alabama | |
| 5 | Penn State | |
| 6 | Brigham Young | |
| 7 | Boise State | |
| 8 | Oklahoma State | |
| 9 | Ohio State | |
| 10 | Mississippi | |
| 11 | Georgia Tech | |
| 12 | TCU | |
| 13 | Utah | |
| 14 | Cincinnati | |
| 15 | North Carolina | |
| 16 | Nebraska | |
| 17 | Notre Dame | |
| 18 | Miami (Florida) | |
| 19 | Oregon State | |
| 20 | Kansas | |
| 21 | Texas Tech | |
| 22 | Missouri | |
| 23 | Tennessee | |
| 24 | Michigan State | |
| 25 | Clemson | |
So, the first thing I did was eliminate every team that lost. Is that rational? I don’t think so, but the BlogPoll instructs that results are supposed to be about what happened on the field. Now, later on I will definitely count close losses, etc into a fuller vision of teams, but for now I thought I’d try this. Among the remaining teams I just employed my gestalt approach: a blend of likelihood of winning the big one, reward for playing well, and elements of a “power poll.”
Now it’s fair to ask, isn’t Georgia better than Clemson? Probably, but the teams will have to prove it on the field. Again, I’m not wedded to this “you lose, you’re out,” but I thought it fair for week one.
My only reservation is it rewards the cupcake schedules — teams that played good teams and lost like Georgia or Virginia Tech are penalized. But it is early in the season.