I will always vote Cal #1!

I think one of the reasons I end up as a most divergent voter (which I did not get an award for last week, by the way) is because I leave some teams completely out of the top 25. Texas, for obvious reasons. LSU because I legitimately think they have no case whatsoever to be a top 25 team. The fact that they’re ranked as high as they are is almost entirely based on their accomplishments in previous years. Georgia, I don’t get the love for Georgia here. They lost to Oklahoma State. Ok, losing to a top 5-top 10 team isn’t a big black mark. Oh but wait, Oklahoma State lost to Houston, at home. Georgia’s excuse is gone. I didn’t see why people had them so high to begin with, we all realize they lost their QB as the #1 pick in the draft, right? And their sick RB, another 1st round pick? And a receiver who was a 2nd round pick? SEC offenses (with the exception of Florida) tend to suck to begin with, losing that kind of talent is not easy for them to overcome. On D they also lost a 3rd and 6th round DL, and a 3rd round CB. Those were just the draft picks they lost. Simply put, there’s no reason for Georgia to be ranked.

I’ve made my case for why I think Arizona should be ranked (especially before UCLA) in another thread. Central Mich just beat Michigan State in Lansing, accumulating over 400 yards of offense. Arizona shut them down to 182 yards of offense. That’s a decent victory in my books. In general I also voted the teams with a loss down much farther than these aggregate polls had them. As the season goes on, I’ll give them props for good wins though (assuming they get some), so they can easily climb back up.

I made sure to vote Houston over Oklahoma St – a win on the road against a team that the consensus thinks is pretty good certainly deserves a top 25 ranking, and a ranking above said team they beat. If you don’t rank Houston over Ok St at this point, what’s the point of rankings at all? Why even bother playing games? It’s two games into the season, and the team on the road won, I don’t see how you can conclude anything else except the team that won on the road is simply the better team, no matter what way you look at it.

I’ve been impressed by the way Cinncinati has taken care of business – so I have them pretty high. WVU has done enough for me to crack the Top 25. Not sure why anyone would vote for a team like FSU, who lost once and barely scraped by an FCS team at home, or Iowa, who barely beat an FCS at home (thanks to two blocked/missed field goals) and beat Iowa State, one of the worst teams in the bowl conferences. Keep in mind these FCS teams aren’t even top 10 ranked FCS teams or anything.

As for voting for Boston College, I dunno, I had to put someone in the Top 25, and since the poll doesn’t give us any information on teams or anything I didn’t know who to put at that point (and chose one of the first teams I came across). I honestly don’t have the slightest clue what they’ve done this season. Since the polls are based on previous weeks CGB community poll, it doesn’t even give me good suggestions, so I just really had nothing to go on in choosing my last team. I think the best solution would be to make the default poll that we change based on that weeks updated AP Poll or something, since our voting usually happens after that comes out? I could see that being extra work, though, so I understand if it stays the same way, just don’t be surprised if you see some weird random team pop up at 24-25 on my poll! I at least think BC’s wins have been decent, it’s not like I’m voting for Duke here again or anything…

Oh and as for Missouri, yes I’m giving them credit for stomping Illinois week 1. Other people are voting for 1-1 Florida St who barely beat an FCS team, at least I can justify voting for Missouri. :)

(As you can see I took my voting a little more serious this week than the previous couple of times, it’s not my fault you sheeple all vote terribly!)