Well, with the season just two weeks away, it's time to unveil the California Golden Blogs' preseason BlogPoll ballot.  For those of you unfamiliar with the BlogPoll, here's the info, straight from the horse's mouth (the horse being Brain Cook of MGoBlog):

WHAT IS THE BLOGPOLL? It's basically the AP poll except with bloggers. It's a poll and so fall prey to all the things that polls fall prey to, but if you're so inclined these are the reasons the BlogPoll might be superior to other polls out there:

Everyone watches a ton of football. It's ironic that the two most prominent polls survey perhaps the two least qualified groups of people to vote: journalists and coaches. Both spend their Saturdays laser-focused on one game. Thanks to Gameplan and DirectTV, bloggers can suck in as many as 20 games every weekend.

Biases are disclosed and closely monitored. Every voter has to have a favorite team; voters without are laughed at and told to watch something soulless. The poll closely tracks each voter's level of bias and uses stern disapproval to keep would-be homers in check. (Would-be negative nancies are not quite so easily dissuaded.)

The poll's goals are clearly stated. The AP poll is full of voters who vote team X super high in the preseason because of its schedule; this is strongly discouraged by the BlogPoll. Preseason polls are supposed to be exclusively about how good a team is thought to be, and postseason polls are supposed to be exclusively about how much a team has accomplished on the field.

Now... it is impossible to separate the former from the latter in late-season polls because college football provides such a sparse data set, but at the very least BlogPoll voters know they shouldn't vote a 9-2 USC team #1 even if they think they're the best team unless that 9-2 includes three killer nonconference matchups.

Voters have more time for consideration. The poll comes out Wednesday morning, allowing voters to catch up on everything that happened and discuss it in the blogosphere. Other polls come out Sunday, and almost never take other's arguments into account.

It's weirder. The poll has some definite wackos in it, but they are relatively few and act as a net positive, forcing more mainstream voters to argue things like "Kansas probably shouldn't be #20 at 11-0" or "why rank Hawaii at all?"

It's more fun. No one really cares, so we can just vote and not have garments rent.

One of the voting practices Brian strongly encourages is for voters to post a preliminary ballot ahead of time, giving readers a chance to discuss and point out errors in logic, judgment, or even memory (i.e., "Hey, you forgot to rank Florida!").  During the season, we'll try and get our ballot up on Monday, but since the preseason votes are due Monday morning, we're posting this on Friday, with all weekend open for discussion.  Any and all feedback is appreciated.

Last year, CGB put out a ballot that consisted of an average of whichever of us felt like putting together a top 25 that week.  While nice and inclusive, it led to some inconsistent results, as teams would move up and down week to week with seemingly little regard for their performance; in fact, it was often because one of us really liked (or disliked) a particular team one week, and then neglected to vote the next.

This year, we've decided to be more uniform.  HydroTech and CBKWit will consistently abstain (due to time constraints), as will TwistNHook (due to ignorance), thus leaving each week's ballot as a straight average of Yellow Fever's opinion and my own.  Hopefully this will lead to fewer wacky ballots.

Also of note:  fellow Cal blogs Excuse Me For My Voice and Bears Necessity will be joining us as BlogPoll voters this year.  Both are fine additions to the poll, and it's nice to see Cal so well represented this year.

Without further to-do, here's our (preliminary) ballot:

1. USC
2. Georgia
3. Florida
4. Oklahoma
5. West Virginia

That looks like a reasonable top 5 to me.  Fever and I both put 'SC at the top, and were high on Florida, Georgia, and Oklahoma.  West Virginia was where we differed, as YF put them at #2, and I barely had them in my top 10.  Sure, they still have Pat White, and Noel Devine is ridiculous, but I think losing Steve Slaton and RichRod is bound to have an effect.

6. Missouri
7. LSU
8. Ohio State
9. Clemson
10. Virginia Tech

LSU's only this far down because we have no idea who the quarterback is going to be.  Ohio State only falls this far because of their no-shows in the last two BCS title games.  Clemson and Virginia Tech?  Someone's gotta win the ACC, I guess, though I had VaTech down in the teens somewhere.  Personally, I think there's a pretty big dropoff between the top 8 and everyone else.

11. Oregon
12. Wisconsin
13. Texas Tech
14. Texas
15. Arizona State

Now we really start getting into the flawed teams.  All are good, all have good shots at winning 10 games this year, but none are without big, unanswered questions.  And yes, that's Texas Tech *above of* Texas.  Honestly, Texas just hasn't been the same since Vince Young left.  Good, but rarely great, and I've bought into some of the preseason predictions that this is the year Texas Tech finally challenges for a Big XII South title.

16. Auburn
17. South Florida
18. BYU
19. Penn State
20. California

The annual game of 'pick the BCS buster' has settled on BYU this year; I'm not super-confident about this ranking, but it wouldn't surprise me at all to find the Cougars in the Fiesta Bowl this year.  Interestingly, Fever left Penn State completely off his ballot, while I omitted Cal.  I have a feeling this is the entry our readers have the strongest opinion about, so I'll just throw this out there:  should Cal begin the season ranked at all?  If so, where?

21. Tennessee
22. Kansas
23. Rutgers
24. Illinois
25. Fresno State

Ah, the 21-25 portion of the ballot.  Often, this is the hardest to fill out.  Sure, all these teams could be top 25 material, but so could 6 or 8 others that got cut (Fever listed Wake Forest; I finished my ballot with Oregon State and Cincinnati).  The key, especially early in the year, is to just pick some teams and not worry so much about it.