Ballots - Week 4

Blogpoll below:

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama	2
2	Florida	1
3	Texas	1
4	Virginia Tech	6
5	TCU	16
6	Boise State	2
7	Southern Cal	5
8	LSU	1
9	Cincinnati	2
10	Ohio State	4
11	Oklahoma	5
12	Iowa
13	Houston
14	Oregon
15	Miami (Florida)	8
16	Georgia	6
17	Kansas
18	Oklahoma State	2
19	Michigan	1
20	Penn State	15
21	South Carolina
22	South Florida
23	Auburn
24	Nebraska
25	Georgia Tech
Last week's ballot

Wow so we've got a lot of teams entering and a lot of teams leaving.  As Whiskey Wednesday told me yesterday, this has been an especially difficult season to nail a top-25 down.  This isn't like 2007 where big teams were upset every now and then.  This is a year where everyone seems to have gone schitzophrenic.

Anyway, we punished our Rebels pretty harshly for losing to South Carolina while giving the Gamecocks some love by putting them at number 21.  Penn State is somehow ("SOMEHOW" MEANS THAT TWO BLOGGERS ON THIS SITE SUBMITTED BALLOTS WITH THEM IN THE TOP-15 I AM NOT NAMING NAMES BRIAN WALKER'S ELBOW AND ONE MAN TO BEAT) in the top-25 which suggests a bias in the Cup identical to the bias I lambasted in yesterday's "Count me as Paranoid" piece. 

Alabama is the new number 1 with obvious reason.  Virginia Tech is looking solid meaning that Bama's early season victory over the Hokies continues to return dividends.

Please submit your user feedback in the comments thread.  If there is a great outcry demanding change (and/or hope) before tonight I can change this ballot.  Now, onto the one which cannot be changed, the SEC Power Poll.

Ivory Tower always does a good job of sending quick little blurbs about each team when he ranks them.  Instead of wasting your time with my ruminations, I'll use his.

1. ALABAMA - The Tide's absolutely dominating performance of the high-flying Petrino offense must have tasted like crimson crap to all those Razorback fans who were feeling pseudo-high on that aerial attack.  Contrary to many of our preseason predictions, Alabama is a complete team. 
2. FLORIDA - THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH TIM TEBOW'S CONCUSSION.  THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH TIM TEBOW'S CONCUSSION.  THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH TIM TEBOW'S CONCUSSION.  Beat somebody already, Florida.
3. LSU - It doesn't matter what I write here because I don't believe this and neither should you.  But since this power poll has absolutely no bearing on who wins the conference, I'll just wait for Georgia to win next week, and our long national nightmare will be over.
4. UGA - There's some transitive property to this.  Because I still believe the Rebels are a good team, I have to believe that South Carolina is a good team, I have to believe that Georgia is a good team. 
5. SOUTH CAROLINA - One of the reasons South Carolina lives this week below the Tigers and Bulldogs is because next week's showdown between those two teams lends some "power" to them.  There is nothing powerful about playing South Carolina State.
6. AUBURN - Despite playing a lighter schedule, arguably, than some other SEC teams in the first month, the Tigers are one of only two teams that have never had the decency to look human.  Every win has been big.  And there has never really been doubt.  A visit to Knoxville will say a lot about Gene Chizik's squad, but, if I were a war eagle, I suddenly don't see very many unwinnable games on my schedule.
7. OLE MISS - I'm just trying to help Bradley Sowell's dream come true.
8. TENNESSEE - The Volunteers looked merely competitive against Ohio. 
9. ARKANSAS - There is some question about whether Arkansas or Kentucky looked worse in their losses on Saturday.  I guess you know where I stand.  Nevertheless, I think Arkansas fans felt like they had moved beyond "looking bad," and that, simply, is not the case.
10. STATE - The unfortunate thing about being Dan Mullen is that when he makes absurd decisions, he doesn't have the players to bail him out.  The calls on third and goal and fourth and goal prove that we need not anymore be "excited about what Dan Mullen is doing down there in Starkville."
11. VANDERBILT - If there is one thing about this week's power poll, it's that - even with the complete unpredictability of this football season - all is right with the world.  Vanderbilt is once again bad.
12. KENTUCKY - And so, we think, is Kentucky.