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The value of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, so rather than restart my protest Not BlogPoll action from last year — which quickly tailed off due to lack of accountability — we're going to try something new this year.
Behold! The inaugural Bring On The Cats Top 25 Poll is nigh!
Bring On The Cats Top 25 Poll — Week 1
| Rank | AP | Team | Record | Points | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | Oregon Ducks (2) | 1-0 | 232 | -- |
| 2 | 1 | Florida State Seminoles (4) | 1-0 | 231 | -- |
| 3 | 9 | Texas A&M Aggies | 1-0 (1-0) |
208 | -- |
| 4 | 6 | Georgia Bulldogs (3) | 1-0 | 205 | -- |
| 5 | 2 | Alabama Crimson Tide | 1-0 | 204 | -- |
| 5 | 4 | Oklahoma Sooners | 1-0 | 204 | -- |
| 7 | 5 | Auburn Tigers | 1-0 (1-0) |
200 | -- |
| 8 | 10 | Baylor Bears | 1-0 | 176 | -- |
| 9 | 7 | Michigan State Spartans | 1-0 | 170 | -- |
| 10 | 12 | LSU Tigers (1) | 1-0 | 167 | -- |
| 11 | 13 | Stanford Cardinal | 1-0 | 147 | -- |
| 12 | 8 | Ohio State Buckeyes | 1-0 | 139 | -- |
| 13 | 11 | UCLA Bruins | 1-0 | 129 | -- |
| 14 | 14 | USC Trojans | 1-0 | 113 | -- |
| 15 | 15 | Ole Miss Rebels | 1-0 | 102 | -- |
| 16 | 20 | Kansas State Wildcats | 1-0 | 94 | -- |
| 17 | 17 | Arizona State Sun Devils | 1-0 | 88 | -- |
| 18 | 16 | Notre Dame Fighting Irish | 1-0 | 87 | -- |
| 19 | 19 | Nebraska Cornhuskers | 1-0 | 53 | -- |
| 20 | 22 | North Carolina Tar Heels | 1-0 | 43 | -- |
| 21 | 25 | Louisville Cardinals | 1-0 (1-0) |
42 | -- |
| 22 | 24 | Missouri Tigers | 1-0 | 37 | -- |
| 22 | 18 | Wisconsin Badgers | 0-1 | 37 | -- |
| 24 | 27 | Oklahoma State Cowboys | 0-1 | 36 | -- |
| 25 | 21 |
South Carolina Gamecocks |
0-1 (0-1) |
15 | -- |
| Dropouts: None | |||||
| Others Receiving Votes: Texas 14, Clemson 13, Washington 10, North Dakota State 9, Michigan 8, TCU 5, Florida 4, Rutgers 3, BYU 2, Tennessee 2, Mississippi State 1. | |||||
Your slate of voters will be myself, Curtis Kitchen, EMAW 4 Ever, Jon Morse, JT VanGilder, Luke Thompson, nugget1224, PurpleBrunette, wildcat00 and KSUEMAW! Derek Smith may fill in as a pinch hitter, when necessary.
We did not do a preseason poll because (A) I didn't have time to compile one and (B) they're stupid.
That means we can start fresh with nothing but on-the-field products to influence us. (Although there is an uncanny resemblance to the AP poll through part of this. Wonder why?)
As you can see, voters were more than willing to mix it up a bit from the national consensus.
On the whole, teams who lost fared a little bit worse in our poll than the national ones, which makes sense when you consider most of the voters are résumé balloters, judging by their submissions (myself included).
Oregon being ranked first despite pulling a minority share of first-place votes was something of a fluke, due mostly to great disagreement over who the top teams actually were.
Most voters agreed that Oregon was second or third, though, and that plurality allowed the Ducks barely to edge the Seminoles, who were left out of the top three on several ballots in protest of their poor performance Saturday.
Otherwise, there was tight agreement on the top seven teams, if not their actual order, with only 32 points separating No. 1 Oregon and No. 7 Auburn. Expect more fluidity and change in the weeks to come, I'd say.
There was a bigger dropoff to No. 8, and an even bigger range from there to No. 15, indicating voters perceive there to be three echelons of upper teams — the elites with great wins, the pretty-goods and everyone else.
Some other interesting items of note:
- Nebraska is not particularly popular, having been left off three ballots entirely. Gee, I wonder why?
- One ballot, which shall remain unidentified, omitted North Carolina, Ohio State and UCLA in favor of Florida, Michigan and TCU. You be the judge.
- LSU had the greatest variance of any team ranked on all 10 ballots, topping mine (I think beating Wisconsin is a little more impressive than beating perennially overrated Clemson or temporarily overrated South Carolina, even though the manner of the win was not particularly impressive), but ranking in the lowest 10 on another. Georgia was the next highest in disagreement, ranging from No. 1 to barely in the top 10.
So, what do you think? Pollsters, feel free to post and defend your ballots in the comments section. Readers, you're certainly welcome to do the same, or you can just take shots at my weird "what have you done lately" voting patterns.