Arkansas up, LSU down. Oklahoma up, Oklahoma State down. Nevada up, Boise State down. Alabama and Arizona get off rather lightly for losing to the #1 and #2 teams in the country. Nothing shocking here, really.
The California Golden Blogs Ballot - Week 14
| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oregon Ducks | -- |
| 2 | Auburn Tigers | -- |
| 3 | TCU Horned Frogs |
 1 |
| 4 | Wisconsin Badgers |
2 |
| 5 | Stanford Cardinal | -- |
| 6 | Ohio St. Buckeyes |
2 |
| 7 | Arkansas Razorbacks |
5 |
| 8 | Michigan St. Spartans |
2 |
| 9 | Oklahoma Sooners |
4 |
| 10 | Nebraska Cornhuskers |
4 |
| 11 | Boise St. Broncos |
 -8 |
| 12 | LSU Tigers |
-5 |
| 13 | Nevada Wolf Pack |
6 |
| 14 | Missouri Tigers |
1 |
| 15 | Alabama Crimson Tide |
-4 |
| 16 | Oklahoma St. Cowboys |
-7 |
| 17 | Virginia Tech Hokies |
-1 |
| 18 | South Carolina Gamecocks |
-1 |
| 19 | Texas A&M Aggies |
-1 |
| 20 | Florida St. Seminoles |
1 |
| 21 | Utah Utes |
2 |
| 22 | West Virginia Mountaineers | -- |
| 23 | Arizona Wildcats |
-3 |
| 24 | Mississippi St. Bulldogs | -- |
| 25 | Northern Illinois Huskies | -- |
| Dropouts: N.C. State Wolfpack, Iowa Hawkeyes | ||
SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings "
As always justifications after the jump, including my take on why Boise State is still above Nevada.
Norcalnick: I'm not going to kill Boise for one loss on the road when their kicker could have won the game for them with a chippy field goal. But Nevada is ahead of them. The hatred of Nevada in the mainstream polls is criminal, and having Nevada below Virginia Tech is just so wrong on so many levels.
Berkelium97: Nevada should be higher and Boise should be higher (I have them at 18th and 19th), but their schedules aren't nearly as strong as any of those above them. I want to move them much higher in my ballot, but I cannot seem to displace any of the top-15 teams.
ragnarok: Normally, when you have two teams with the same record, and one of them beat the other in a head-to-head matchup, the winner should be above the loser, right? However, consider this. Vegas oddsmakers give the home team about a field goal advantage, which is the margin Nevada beat Boise State by. In overtime. On a neutral field, does Nevada come storming back to catch the Broncos and force overtime? What about on the Smurf turf? Nevada won the game, but I don't think you can definitively say from that one result that the Wolfpack is the better team.
So let's look at some other games, since both teams have played a whole bunch of them. First off Boise State's wins over Virginia Tech and Oregon State are much more impressive than Nevada's wins over BYU and Cal. And what about their common WAC opponents? Both teams took it to Idaho and New Mexico State handily. Nevada beat San Jose State by 3 touchdowns at home, but Boise beat the Spartans 48-0 on the road. Nevada squeaked by Fresno State in Fresno by a point. The Broncos shut out Fresno 51-0. Boise State also beat Hawai'i 42-7, whereas Nevada actually lost to the Rainbow Warriors 27-21. In light of this sort of schedule analysis, it's hard to come to any conclusion other than Boise State is the better team.
Yellow Fever: Still having trouble filling out the bottom of my bracket. I'd like to have bumped Nevada up more, but it's tough to figure out where they should belong given their accomplishments relative to the teams above them. Not that most of that matter anyway - I'm just happy to be able to put a Big East team back in the top 25.
Berkelium97: Wisconsin passed TCU after posting another huge margin of victory. That offense has really taken off after (oddly enough) John Clay stepped aside with injuries.
Norcalnick: Wisconsin gets the top Big 10 spot largely on the strength of margin of victory, though I don't feel comfortable with them below Michigan St.
Berkelium97: Utah's narrow win over an awful BYU team drops them a few spots in my ballot. Maybe they haven't turned it around after that TCU loss...
Norcalnick: The hardest part of the poll was sorting through the four 10-2 Big 12 teams, all of which have beaten each other. I gave Nebraska the poll position because their loss to A&M was fluky, but you could make a pretty convincing argument for ordering Nebraska, Missou, OSU and Oklahoma in just about any order.
Berkelium97: Welcome to the top-25 Ralph Friedgen!