Wednesday, August 20, 2008

BlogPoll Top 25 Ballot: Preseason

My preseason BlogPoll ballot. Please consider that I have ranked teams in order of how I think they will finish the season, not their relative strength today. My s.o.p. is to change the ranking based on actual on-field results immediately after Week 1, impacted weekly thereafter.

1. Florida
2. Ohio State
3. USC
4. Georgia
5. Oklahoma
6. Missouri
7. West Virginia
8. Auburn
9. Clemson
10. BYU
11. Texas
12. Texas Tech
13. LSU
14. Wisconsin
15. South Florida
16. Oregon
17. Tennessee
18. VA Tech
19. Kansas
20. Penn State
21. Arizona State
22. Wake Forest
23. Illinois
24. Utah
25. Northwestern

A few things, given the emphasis I have made over the past few weeks:

Yes, by putting Ohio State over USC, I think that OSU will win at USC a month from now. Yes, that represents a change in my thinking since last month. Yes, that should quash at least some of the notion out there that I am wholly and irrationally anti-OSU.

Yes, by putting Florida over Georgia, I think that Florida will beat Georgia in the Cocktail Party. (UF has the revenge factor; UGA shouldn't have used their chit a year ago, when they really needed to lull the Gators last year and surprise them this year.) And, yes, I pick Florida to win the national title, mostly because I think Florida will win the SEC title and I think the SEC champ earn win the national title again. You can holler at me for bias, which would be fair, but please note that, among others, Sunday Morning QB's Matt Hinton and CFB OCD-case Phil Steele both picked Florida to be No. 1. So it's not totally crazy.

4 comments:

BobbyStompy said...

Northwestern in and Michigan out?

And no way Sconnie finishes that high.

Jon said...

BYU at #10?!?!?

Are you nuts? No way in hell BYU gets through their season without at least two losses. They've lost their entire defense and Bronco is a tool of the highest order.

http://twitter.com/#!/DuelingAces said...

I made my BCS pick here earlier and I am still going to go with Oklahoma and tOSU. But since you have Oklahoma 5 and every team in the top 4 have to play another team in the top 4, who do you see beating Oklahoma? I see tOSU beating USC and Georgia Beating Florida, and one of the random SEC schools knocking off Georgia... And don't put Northwestern in the top 25 your not Spurrier and NU ain't Duke. You burned your Big 10 bridge a long time ago. If you truly think that NU is top 25 worthy, than you truly are senile and that would explain why you root for the SEC.

Ben Rice said...

I dig the gratuitous vote for NU at 25.