California Golden Blogs College Football Top 25 Poll: Week 15

This week's Top 25:

California Golden Blogs Top 25 - Week 15

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Oregon Ducks	--
2	Alabama Crimson Tide	1
3	Baylor Bears	1
4	TCU Horned Frogs	1
5	Florida State Seminoles	1
6	Ohio State Buckeyes	1
7	Arizona Wildcats	2
8	Kansas State Wildcats	5
9	Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets	4
10	Michigan State Spartans	2
11	Wisconsin Badgers	4
12	Mississippi Rebels	13
13	Arizona State Sun Devils	2
14	Mississippi State Bulldogs	6
15	Missouri Tigers	4
T-16	Boise State Broncos	3
T-16	UCLA Bruins	10
18	Georgia Bulldogs	8
19	Oklahoma Sooners	3
20	Clemson Tigers	3
T-21	Utah Utes	NEW
T-21	USC Trojans	NEW
T-23	Auburn Tigers	5
T-23	Memphis Tigers	NEW
25	Louisville Cardinals	1
Teams dropped from last week's Top 25: Colorado State Rams, Marshall Thundering Herd, Minnesota Golden Gophers Others receiving votes: Nebraska Cornhuskers, Air Force Falcons, LSU Tigers, Marshall Thundering Herd, Colorado State Rams

California Golden Blogs College Football Top 25 Rankings

Fiat Lux: Well I hope you're happy, atoms. I finally cave in and rank Marshall and then...

My top four remain the same despite another feeble showing in win by FSU. But if the goal is to win your games then...

Good-bye UCLA. What a face plant.

I'll be genuinely annoyed is Memphis isn't ranked this week.

Even with my anti-SEC take all season, I think we can legitimately say only one SEC team is now a Top 10 team. While it was the East, the SEC went 0 for 4 against the ACC this week. You KNOW, had those scores been reversed the SEC propaganda machine would be using it to show the depth of the conference.

Berkelium97: I've had enough of Florida State's terrible performances and I dropped them outside the playoff picture. I hope Georgia Tech beats FSU next week to keep the Seminoles out of the playoffs.

On a related note, I am glad the SEC teams beat themselves up enough that we will only have one SEC team in the playoffs.

Of course, as punishment we'll probably have Missouri beat Alabama and then Alabama still goes to the playoff.

Is the MWC's Mountain division better than the SEC East and the Pac-12 North?

Nick Kranz:

• I finally gave in and ranked Ohio St. 6th thanks to constant attrition of the other teams around them. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt because of their margins of victory and for lack of alternatives, but I'm still strongly in the anti-Big-10 camp, and I will probably have Michigan St. and Wisconsin lower than everybody else.
• The ACC, meanwhile, gets a nice little boost after a blood bath over the tattered remnants of the SEC East. Missouri gets most of the punishment, since their wins are over SEC East teams and the two worst SEC West teams.
• The two loss teams are tough to judge. Mississippi St., Arizona, Georgia Tech, Missouri, Wisconsin and Michigan St. all have major flaws to their resumes. Maybe it's an awful non-con schedule (Miss St., Arizona). Maybe it's a bad loss or two (Georgia Tech, Missouri and Wisconsin) or maybe it's a weak conference schedule (Missouri, Georgia Tech and Wisconsin again). It feels like there are five teams with a legitimate playoff claim, Ohio St., and a bunch of detritus.
• If Kansas St. beats Baylor, then the playoff committee will have the easiest choice they could have possible envisioned. If Arizona, Georgia Tech, Baylor and/or Missouri win, then things descend into chaos.

atomsareenough: I for one am rooting for chaos! I've got my popcorn ready and everything.

Interestingly, if the playoff committee were made up by the CGB Top 25 voters, there would be 2 Big-12 teams (Baylor, TCU), and Florida State would be left off as of this week. Thankfully Baylor has one more tough game remaining against K-State, and FSU has a conference championship game against Georgia Tech, which should help sort things out.

That Marshall-WKU game was incredibly entertaining, if you love touchdowns. It reminded me of Cal-Wazzu and Cal-Colorado rolled into one, with extra interceptions. I guess Marshall being on the fringes of the Top 25 is about right after all. :)

There was actually a lot of agreement at the top of the poll, and really the disagreements only started appearing the further down the ballot you go. I suppose that's to be expected at the end of the season. Here were the major points of disagreement:

• FiatLux still loves Wisconsin significantly more than anyone else. I hope they back him up by beating Ohio State.
• FiatLux really hammered Mississippi State, dropping them from #9 all the way down to #24. Everyone else had the Bulldogs between #9-14.
• Lots of disagreement on Boise State and Georgia, which makes sense because Boise has a lighter schedule and has come on strong of late, and Georgia is schizophrenic.
• Only 2 voters had Auburn on their ballots. They haven't had a decent win in over a month though, so I couldn't put them on mine.
• Memphis is there solely on the back of FiatLux's support. I do think they have a good case to be ranked, but couldn't really find room on my ballot. Fiat had them so high though, that I think they ended up in about the right spot.