This Week's BlogPoll Top 25 Ballot

West Virginia put on enough of a show to zoom into the coveted Top 4, and a smidgen of "What Have You Done For Me Lately?" vaults Oregon over last week's No. 2 Kansas State. FSU drops to No. 5. In the end, let's root for entertaining games, because the season is one long lead-up to Alabama throttling Oregon or FSU or West Virginia or whoever.

DanShanoff.com Ballot - Week 5

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama Crimson Tide	--
2	Oregon Ducks	2
3	Kansas St. Wildcats	-1
4	West Virginia Mountaineers	3
5	Florida St. Seminoles	-2
6	LSU Tigers	--
7	Georgia Bulldogs	3
8	TCU Horned Frogs	--
9	Ohio St. Buckeyes	8
10	South Carolina Gamecocks	-1
11	Texas Longhorns	4
12	Florida Gators	1
13	Clemson Tigers	-2
14	Oregon St. Beavers	8
15	Oklahoma Sooners	--
16	Notre Dame Fighting Irish	-2
17	Stanford Cardinal	-12
18	USC Trojans	--
19	Louisville Cardinals	-3
20	Mississippi St. Bulldogs	-1
21	Nebraska Cornhuskers	2
22	Ohio Bobcats	-1
23	Miami Hurricanes	--
24	Northwestern Wildcats	1
25	Texas A&M Aggies	--
Dropouts: Arizona Wildcats, Michigan St. Spartans, Rutgers Scarlet Knights

SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »

9/29 (CFB Craziness) Quickie

That West Virginia-Baylor game (70-63 final) was the most entertaining regular-season college football game I have ever seen, topping my old favorite Northwestern over Michigan 52-50, which seems plodding by comparison. Geno Smith: My goodness. Happy to let him be the Heisman front-runner until further notice. And can't wait for West Virginia-Texas next weekend.

9/28 (Weekend) Quickie

Last night's NFL game was a preview of the dominant storyline of the upcoming weekend:

NFL refs being showered with affection by fans in every stadium they enter.

The support may be short-lived, but the image is powerful -- I can't remember the last time I saw refs so glowingly cheered (and responding).

I'm sure it made the refs feel good. I'm sure it made the fans feel good. I'm sure it made players and coaches feel good.

And I'm sure it made the NFL feel good that Monday's "Fail Mary" is all but forgotten, a distant memory of "that time we had those replacement refs."

There will be plenty of iffy calls on Sunday -- there always are. But appreciate the momentary and mutual cheerfulness between fans, refs, players and league.

More:

*Stanford loses to Washington: So Stanford isn't as good as we thought (and USC really isn't as good as we thought) and another would-be BCS crasher is out (not that Stanford was getting by Oregon in the Pac-12 anyway). Is this a harbinger of odd outcomes this weekend or did we get the notable result out of the way already?

*CFB Picks: I'll take all ranked (or higher-ranked) teams to win, except I'll take Arizona at home over Oregon State. I'm not picking Texas to lose at Oklahoma State, but -- in a lame hedge -- it wouldn't surprise me. Oh, and I'll take Ohio State over Michigan State -- Urban Meyer is great at beating tertiary rivals (in addition to beating primary and secondary ones regularly, too).

*Ravens beat Browns: Zzz. I mean, we all saw this coming, and I guess that if you're a Browns fan, you're happy you were at least competitive? Then consider that Baltimore was playing its 4th game in 18 days. Anyway, another win for the Ravens and a little hope for the Browns.

*RA Dickey wins 20th: The best player story in baseball this season -- perhaps the best player story in all of sports in 2012. It's going to end with a Cy Young Award for the knuckleballer, and even a Nats fan who loves Gio Gonzalez can agree with that.

*NHL cancels rest of preseason: You knew it was coming. I think they return to work by the time we get to the Winter Classic -- if they were smart, they would make that opening day and have every team participating (not in the open-air stadium, but all wearing throwbacks and playing games).

*NBA to crack down on flopping: Frankly, I'd rather see them crack down on superstar griping about missed calls -- a fine for every faux-shocked face or squeal of indignation. But, yes, flopping is a problem, too. (Fines probably aren't enough -- what if you're nicked 5 times for flopping, you're suspended for a half of a game?)

*Jobs: Manny Acta is out in Cleveland, and if Terry Francona really is a candidate, that would be a great hire. He won't turn them into contenders, but he's an upgrade.

Enjoy your weekend. Updates on Sat and Sun a.m.

-- D.S.

9/27 (Real Refs Return) Quickie

In the end, the NFL blinked. It doesn't matter if they were already headed toward a resolution with the refs -- done in a few days or a few weeks. The perception is that they buckled in the wake of Monday night.

And perception is what was at the heart of yesterday's end-game: In the unlikeliest scenario, the NFL couldn't deal with the post-"Fail Mary" perception that the game's integrity was eroding/eroded. And so the league made the best of a bad situation it found itself in -- they cut a deal with the refs, probably not as hard-line as they would have wanted, but still hard-line enough. Meanwhile, they cut bait on a replacement-ref situation spinning entirely out of control.

There was a pretty good argument to be made that the NFL couldn't afford to go another week with the fake refs -- the dominant image of Week 4 would have been the persistent jeering within stadiums every time a ref made a call. There is a good case to be made that THAT would have been even worse for the league than the single epically bad call on Monday night -- from one really bad "worst-case" situation to a cascade of nationwide credibility issues that put the entire brand at risk.

NFL owners might be stubborn, but they are not stupid. They weighed the business risk -- and, let's be clear: that's all they weigh -- and realized it was time to get out of this hole now.

As many have already pointed out, the good feelings for the "real" refs will last right up until the first iffy call. And, if history is any guide, there will be plenty. But the state of the NFL is far better today than Tuesday morning.

More:

Tigers lead AL Central again: If you like your postseasons interesting, Detroit is a more interesting team than Chicago -- more likely to dent New York and Texas (and Baltimore?) pitching, more likely to offer intriguing stars like Miguel Cabrera and his near-Triple-Crown season. (That said, I'm not averse to a one-game playoff to decide the AL Central winner.)

The A's are hanging around. Joe Sheehan had a really interesting point in his awesome subscription newsletter yesterday that there is a case to be made that a team like the A's is better off manipulating the new postseason system by optimizing their result in a one-game Wild Card at home, rather than trying to win the division, and -- in the process -- having to play a tie-breaker to win the division, losing that, then having to play a one-game Wild Card, then (even if they win that) having to start an LDS series against a fresh opponent.

The best story in baseball over the season's final week will be the Marlins bringing back Adam Greenberg -- a latter-day Moonlight Graham -- for his 2nd-ever MLB at-bat next Tuesday. His first, of course, ended with the end of his career.

Another Penn State player leaves: The guys who took off before the season started, just after the punishment was handed down, were never going to be as fascinating as the ones who -- NCAA transfer deal still on the table -- leave mid-season when they either chafe at Bill O'Brien's style or just don't like where the program is (or is headed). Remember: Players can leave without NCAA consequence all the way through the start of NEXT season, with immediately eligibility.

Jobs: Smart hire by the Astros to hire Nats 3B coach Bo Porter -- it's hard to know whether the team's success is because of savvy dealmaking, a stocked farm system over the past few years, lucking into Harper and Strasburg, Davey Johnson's managerial style or what. But picking up a hot assistant is a tried-and-true method in sports hiring.

-- D.S.

9/25 (NFL Refmageddon) Quickie

"One of the great disgraces in NFL history." That's not me. That's not "instant history" hysterics. That is SI's Peter King, dean of NFL writers, succinctly capturing last night's Packers-Seahawks ending that can only be described as the NFL's "Refmageddon" -- just about the worst-case scenario that could have been imagined.

For a quick look at the very best takes on it -- updated throughout the day -- check out Quickish.

It WAS a disgrace. And it did set the (sports) internet on fire. And it does crystallize the entire "replacement refs" situation in the NFL. And it is a massive humiliation for Roger Goodell.

But probably the only question that really matters: Will it change anything?

Will Goodell fold? And what happens when he doesn't and even more fans tune in for next week's games? What happens when he doesn't and the media -- enraged to be reminded that they have no real power -- doubles down on its outrage? What happens when he doesn't and the players all but revolt next week? What happens when he doesn't and nothing happens next week, because it can't possibly get worse than it is this morning?

But what happens if Goodell does fold? I think the Commissioner is way more attuned to that than you might think -- part of a hard-line negotiating stance (one that I don't support, btw) is that you can't fold, even if you hit a worst-case scenario. Folding now sets up Goodell and the NFL owners as a group that will buckle under the toughest pressure for the next labor dispute. Don't think he doesn't understand that.

Goodell should fold. But will he? And what if he doesn't?

Those are the dynamics I'm paying attention to today.

-- D.S.

9/24 (NFL Week 3 Hangover) Quickie

Yes, the replacement refs are not doing a great job and there is no real reason the NFL should let this go on, but I'm with Yahoo's Dan Wetzel that the players' gripes are a bigger spectacle.

Other big storylines from yesterday that I found fascinating:

*Torrey Smith's grief: It is unfathomable that Smith lost his brother earlier in the day, then came to the stadium and put together a brilliant performance that led the Ravens over the hated Pats.

*Saints are 0-3: Including 0-2 at home! Part of it is surely the distractions from the offseason. Part of it is surely missing head coach Sean Payton. But maybe part of it is that they're just not that good.

*Cardinals are 3-0: OK, OK -- we believe. (No, no: We still don't. Come on. Seriously? At least we can all agree that the Eagles were a house of cards.)

*49ers lose to the Vikings: This week's "Just When You Thought You Understood the NFL, You Really Don't" moment, as clear as they come.

*Runner-up: The Titans beating the Lions in a shootout. Jake Locker is the new Matt Stafford?

*And the best team in the NFL after 3 weeks is...: The Falcons?

More to lead off the week:

CFB: The big storyline will be "FSU is back!" but... the weekend's real takeaway is that no one is stopping Oregon and that an Alabama-Oregon national-title match-up feels like a foregone conclusion. (But, without question, a strong -- even dominant -- FSU is good for college football, if bad for my Gators.)

MLB State of the Wild Card Races: Baltimore and Oakland in command of the AL Wild Card, but with 9 or 10 games to play, the Angels don't seem ready to concede. In the NL, the Brewers (2.5 GB) look like they want to make it interesting (but it'll take a collapse by a Braves or Cards).

Golf: Back in February, anyone have Brendt Snedeker as FedEx Cup winner? Anyone?

-- D.S.

This Week's BlogPoll Top 25 Ballot

Alabama stays at No. 1, with Kansas State jumping up to "No. 2 For Now" on the strength of its "Best Win By Any Team This Season" win at Oklahoma.

Rounding out the "If The Season Ended Today And We Had a Playoff" is Florida State (technically its new full name is "Florida State is Back") and Oregon.

West Virginia drops out, mostly because no self-respecting contender should have as much trouble with Maryland as WVU did (at home, no less).

Presuming Kansas State stumbles in a wildly competitive Big 12, no change to the reigning expectation that unbeaten Oregon (and they will stay unbeaten) will edge an unbeaten FSU (and they will stay unbeaten) for the No. 2 spot in the national-title game -- and the chance to lose to Alabama.

DanShanoff.com Ballot - Week 4

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama Crimson Tide	--
2	Kansas St. Wildcats	13
3	Florida St. Seminoles	3
4	Oregon Ducks	-1
5	Stanford Cardinal	-1
6	LSU Tigers	-4
7	West Virginia Mountaineers	-2
8	TCU Horned Frogs	4
9	South Carolina Gamecocks	2
10	Georgia Bulldogs	8
11	Clemson Tigers	-4
12	Arizona Wildcats	-4
13	Florida Gators	--
14	Notre Dame Fighting Irish	7
15	Texas Longhorns	2
16	Louisville Cardinals	--
17	Ohio St. Buckeyes	-8
18	USC Trojans	-4
19	Mississippi St. Bulldogs	--
20	Michigan St. Spartans	2
21	Ohio Bobcats	3
22	Oregon St. Beavers	--
23	Nebraska Cornhuskers	--
24	Rutgers Scarlet Knights	1
25	Northwestern Wildcats	--
Dropouts: Oklahoma Sooners, Michigan Wolverines, UCLA Bruins

SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »

9/23 (CFB Hangover) Quickie

Ranking yesterday's signature wins:

(1) Kansas State, over (at) Oklahoma: Best win of the season by any team. Tough Big 12 schedule remaining, but for now, a "if the season ended now and we had a four-team playoff, they'd be in" team.

(2) Florida State, over Clemson: Jaw-dropping offense. Defense that makes you think that if they ran into a defense like Alabama's or LSU's or a superior offense like Oregon, they would fall short. Still: QB EJ Manuel had the single-best "big game" performance by any single player this season.

(3) Oregon, destroying Arizona: Slow start -- even eyebrow-raising -- turned into a 49-0 rout that has Oregon at the top of the pile of teams vying for "No. 2 behind Alabama" status.

(4) Notre Dame, edging Michigan: It wasn't pretty -- and Michigan clearly isn't anywhere nearly as good as people were thinking they were a month ago -- but Notre Dame needed a win like that over a perceived "good" team. The Irish offense is terrible, but the D is clearly solid.

(5) LSU, escaping Auburn: "Close wins" are hardly a crime -- the Tigers will drop in the polls because September is about style points. But watch them grind through October leading up to their early-November de facto national semifinal playoff game against Alabama. They'll hang in there.

Couple of notes:

*Best detail of the day: Oregon State's Mike Riley diverted his team's travel plans back from UCLA by stopping by In-and-Out Burger for a treat.

*The Big Ten's biggest problem is not that Iowa lost to Central Michigan, which is as big of a symbol of the Big Ten being "down" this season as anything. No, the Big Ten's biggest problem is that its purportedly "best" team -- Ohio State, bowl-eligible or not -- just ain't that good.

*Anyone else surprised at how much trouble West Virginia had with lowly Maryland, especially in Morgantown? The Big 12 is fascinating: Kansas State has the signature win, West Virginia has the glitz (and favorable schedule), Oklahoma is a step behind, Texas is who-knows-what... and TCU is probably going to turn out to be the best team in the league.

*Missouri's loss to Georgia in its SEC opener two weeks ago isn't nearly as representative as the way they got throttled on the road at South Carolina yesterday. Gonna be a rough ride.

*Northwestern: 4-0 and, in a down year for the Big Ten, every reason to think they can finish near the top of the league.

Enjoy your NFL Sunday, particularly you folks in NYC who will get your first-ever taste of NFL Red Zone Channel today.

-- D.S.

9/21 (Weekend) Quickie

So in my first full MLB season in DC, the Nats make the playoffs. Not bad...

CFB Weekend Watch: It's a mini "Separation Saturday" theme.
*Clemson-FSU: Winner still in national title hunt. Loser out.
*Kansas State-Oklahoma: Ditto.
If only they weren't on TV at the same time.

Plus:
*Oregon-Arizona: Oregon will roll, but let's see how far Zona has come.
*Michigan-Notre Dame: Someone is getting exposed, and I'll say it's ND.

NFL Week 3 Storylines I like:
Game of the Week: Pats at Ravens (No, wait: Eagles at Cards???)
Must-win at home for the 0-2 Saints against the Chiefs? Yep.
Jets-Dolphins: They're both 1-1 -- is this a season-breaking game for winner/loser?
Watching Greg Schiano: Think he'll care about the Cowboys "mystique?" No way.
RG3 Mania: At home against the Bengals. Cam got roasted last night.

Last night: Giants pound Panthers. Bad week to start Cam Newton in fantasy.

MLB: Melky Cabrera pulls out of NL batting race. The right move, but it would have been fun to see him stay in and "win" the title.

CFB Last night: Boise 7, BYU 6. What the hell?

Enjoy your weekend. Usual college football hangover coming Sunday a.m.

-- D.S.

09/19 (Steve Sabol) Quickie

Here's what I think about the late, great Steve Sabol:

I think that he (and his dad, via NFL Films) had more of an impact on sports media -- and, consequently, sports fandom -- than any other single media figure in history.

More than Roone Arledge, whose idea to put the NFL in primetime was revolutionary. More than the ESPN founders. Certainly more than any athlete ever did.

His notion of filming the nascent NFL, then turning his access into an accessibility for fans -- all with a signature style (slow-motion, miked-up coaches, classical music, deep-baritone narrators) -- was revolutionary at the time. Then, uniquely, it stood the test of time.

NFL Films was simultaneously a historical record, a love letter and a gateway drug. It influenced countless fans, filmmakers, players and media.

Sabol leaves as marvelous of a legacy as anyone in sports or media ever has -- just head over to YouTube to enjoy it.

Condolences to his family, friends, colleagues and many many fans.

(Check out some great Sabol rememberances and reactions over at Quickish. The best one I've read is Joe Posnanski's homage to Sabol over at SportsOnEarth.com.)

More:

*Yunel Escobar suspended three games: He seems more sorry he got punished than sorry he might have offended anyone -- otherwise, he wouldn't have done it in the first place.

*Ronaldo > Man City: That was pretty exciting.

*NFL vs. Refs: If you think things are coming to a head, you would be mis-reading the situation -- fans are not turning away from the game; they are watching it in ever-greater numbers. There is zero incentive for the NFL to settle, beyond the probabilistic analysis that with every game that goes by, they run the risk of some kind of epic failure by a replacement official that might actually dent the NFL brand. Even then, fans will still watch in ever-greater numbers. I suspect the real refs are ready to settle as soon as the NFL is willing to let them.

*Quote of the Day: "Maybe we don't call them student-athletes any longer and just refer to them as students." (Lead NCAA policy advisor in a memo to new incoming NCAA president Mark Emmert)

-- D.S.

09/18 (NFL Hangover) Quickie

Happy new year to my fellow MOT...

The biggest question coming out of last night's MNF game isn't whether the widely held preseason assumption that Peyton Manning was going to be just fine was exposed as empty -- although that is entirely on the table today -- but whether the atrocious work of the replacement refs finally pushes the NFL to make a deal with the locked-out standard-bearers. Let's hope so.

Meanwhile: Yes, Peyton Manning was/is plenty exposed. I think the default position should be "he can't," right up until he leads the Broncos to the Super Bowl -- as SI predicted.

Oh, and what the hell was Michael Turner thinking last night?

Week 2 Remainders:
*Greg Schiano's shenanigans: I appreciate flying in the face of NFL orthodoxy as much as anyone, but Schiano made a misstep on this one. (That said: Changing a culture is hard, and moves like this make it clear which way he wants the team to go -- but sometimes, "moves like this" are mis-steps.)

*Patriots schadenfreude: That was an excruciating way to lose, for a team that not only almost always wins at home, but seemingly had a gimme against a second- (or lower) tier team coming from West to East for a 1 p.m. start, which is the lock of locks. As it turns out, Aaron Hernandez is the Pats' MVP.

*RG3 Mania: That Josh Morgan thing was stupefyingly dumb. Let's just remember the "Cam Newton Principle" -- RG3 can be breathtakingly good, and yet the Redskins can still be a woeful team that maybe reaches 4 or 5 wins this season.

More:

*The Pats are looking at Kellen Winslow? He's like a very poor man's version of Hernandez. Didn't Winslow fail his physical a few weeks ago? Pats looking a little desperate.

*Saints bountygate: As it turns out, yes, the players -- including Jonathan Vilma -- did have bounties out on players, like Favre. Hard to believe Gregg Williams would perjure himself to pin blame on Vilma.

*The best story of the weekend was the NFL assigning a replacement ref who is a Saints fan to be a part of the crew reffing the Saints game. I wish every sports media person had a profile attached to everything they wrote that included every team and athlete they're in the tank for.

-- D.S.

This Week's BlogPoll Top 25 Ballot

The biggest question was how far to drop USC -- they probably deserved to drop more, but going by "resume," it's not a capital crime to lose close on the road to a Top 5 team.

We'll get a lot more clarity after next week, when Florida State and Clemson play -- the winner should expect to vault into the Top 4.

DanShanoff.com Ballot - Week 3

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama Crimson Tide	--
2	LSU Tigers	1
3	Oregon Ducks	1
4	Stanford Cardinal	--
5	West Virginia Mountaineers	--
6	Florida St. Seminoles	--
7	Clemson Tigers	1
8	Arizona Wildcats	3
9	Ohio St. Buckeyes	--
10	Oklahoma Sooners	2
11	South Carolina Gamecocks	2
12	TCU Horned Frogs	9
13	Florida Gators	5
14	USC Trojans	-7
15	Kansas St. Wildcats	4
16	Louisville Cardinals	-1
17	Texas Longhorns	3
18	Georgia Bulldogs	-1
19	Mississippi St. Bulldogs	4
20	Michigan Wolverines	4
21	Notre Dame Fighting Irish	--
22	Michigan St. Spartans	-8
23	UCLA Bruins	--
24	Ohio Bobcats	--
25	Rutgers Scarlet Knights	--
Dropouts: ULM Warhawks, Utah State Aggies, Virginia Tech Hokies, Tennessee Volunteers, Arkansas Razorbacks

SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »

Sunday (CFB Hangover) Quickie

Stanford beating USC is one of the reasons I love college football. (Frankly, now in its fourth year, it has become a perennial tradition with more relevance/resonance than any other "rivalry" game.)

This year's edition was not so different than the rest: USC waltzes in with something along the lines of an entitlement it should win. Stanford proceeds to hammer them and ruin USC's season.

In this case, there was nothing less than a presumption that this USC team was a lock to finish the season as a top contender to play for the national title; at the very least, they would have a shot right up until the Pac-12 title game to make their case to play Alabama (or, say, Alabama-LSU winner).

But then USC's fundamental sizzle met Stanford's steak. Lane Kiffin was exposed (yet again) as a coaching lightweight. Matt Barkley lost his shot at the Heisman, for which he was the presumptive favorite and for which there is now a widly wide-open competition.

More than anything, it is a reminder of the glory that is the college football regular-season battle of attrition. There are so many assumptions made, but in the best years, they are tested -- and regularly proven false.

"USC will run the table until Oregon."
"Matt Barkley will win the Heisman."
"This Saturday seems like a slate full of obvious results."

We've still got "It's Alabama and everyone else."

But Saturday night was a wonderful reality check that we shouldn't take anything for granted. And tune in, because you never know what you're going to see.

A few other notes:

*USC may have been overrated and exposed, but Stanford has earned a spot in this week's Top 5.

*Florida is not as good as their ranking will be, but better than I thought they'd be. So there's that!

*Alabama. I mean...I know Arkansas is a mess, but still. Yikes. Yeesh. Holy cow.

*Michigan State was overrated, but it's time to give Notre Dame some credit.

*I love watching Oregon play, but there is no evidence that even if they destroy everyone along the way to 12-0, they won't get snapped in half by the SEC champ.

*Western Kentucky is the new Louisiana-Monroe.

*Virginia Tech is the same old September-chokey Virginia Tech.

*If I had to pick a new Heisman front-runner, it's Ohio State QB Braxton Miller, with the Mariota-Thomas hybrid at Oregon tied for 2nd.

*This afternoon's games were snoozers. The Stanford-USC result more than made up for it.

-- D.S.