Sunday, November 15, 2009

The Guru's BlogPoll Ballot (Week 11)

The Guru's Blogpoll ballot this week. With comments below:

RankTeamDelta
1 Texas
2 Alabama
3 TCU 1
4 Florida 1
5 Boise State
6 Cincinnati
7 Pittsburgh
8 Georgia Tech
9 Oregon 1
10 Ohio State 2
11 LSU 2
12 Iowa 2
13 Penn State 5
14 Brigham Young 7
15 Wisconsin 8
16 Utah 3
17 Houston 2
18 Oklahoma State 2
19 Rutgers
20 Arizona 4
21 Stanford
22 USC 11
23 Oregon State 1
24 Clemson
25 Navy

Last week's ballot

Dropped Out: Miami (Florida) (#17), South Florida (#19), West Virginia (#22).

* The top of the ballot is relatively static, with the exception of TCU and Florida switching places. While the Horned Frogs really did impress in their rout of Utah that all but clinched a spot in a BCS bowl, I'm just not sold on Florida, not at all. The Gators scratched out a victory against yet another mediocre foe. Take a good look at their schedule, whom have they beaten? Other than LSU, there is not another ranked team - not even close. The second best team Florida has beaten might have been Troy. And basically, the Gators should play for the BCS title because they beat two teams (if they get by Alabama)? Come again?

* Pitt and Georgia Tech at Nos. 7 and 8 are basically a coin flip. I can go either way, so I'm sticking with what I have. This will get sorted out anyway because Pitt will either rise if it can handle Cincinnati or sink if it can't.

* Iowa finally gets respect from the Guru - after a loss. But while the Hawkeyes proved their mettle by hanging tough in Columbus, Kirk Ferentz gets no love for not giving his team a chance to win. With about a minute left and a timeout to spare, on their own 35, Ferentz decided to play safe and sit on it instead of trying to get about 35 yards for a field goal and a shot to win the game. Jim Tressel similarly played safe in overtime. And you wonder why the Big Ten constantly gets trashed.

* Stanford at 21, one spot ahead of USC, which was squeezed like a melon by the Cardinal at the Coliseum. The Guru wanted to know what was said between Pete Carroll and Jim Harbaugh after the game. Thanks to our friend the Wiz, now we know what the deal is. Prediction: Carroll doesn't get a chance for payback, not against Harbaugh anyway - he'll be coaching Michigan or some team in the NFL by next year.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm a UF fan and I don't really disagree with you. TCU, IMO, should be #1. The SEC and Big 12 should be fighting to play those guys. It is a bit weird that TCU won't play anyone the next 3 weeks and we are ok with that...but we continue to punish B12/SEC people for playing 600,000x strenth of schedule. But what we want to do is make those big conferences sorry! So we will make up whatever we need to in order to do it!!!! LOL. You guys are pathetic sometimes. Carry on with your big bad TCU self. You are going to look silly when everyone looks back at this.

Anonymous said...

Yeah right. And I'm a TCU fan and I completely disagree. I don't think my Horned Frogs would stand a snowball's chance in hell of competing with Florida or Alabama. Who has TCU beaten that measures up to an elite SEC school this year? Utah? They are terrible. Yes they manhandled an Alabama team that was downtrodden after the SEC championship game loss to florida last year, but this is not the same Utah team. They are rebuilding this year. TCU doesn't match up and would get destroyed if they played a quality team. I have watched them all year and I'm not impressed. They have a good D, not great. Offense is average and would get beat down against a quality D. They need to be grateful for a BCS bid without playing anyone real.

Dustin said...

Wow, took all season, but finally some Big 10 love, each of the 4 teams move up, some up big in this week's Guru Poll. As an Iowa fan, it is easy to Monday morning quarterback, but you are tied at the horseshoe with some time to go, you go for it.

Clark said...

TCU is really good. I don't see BYU or Utah as top 15 teams. A top 15 team ought to at least be competative with a top 5 team. Both BYU and Utah lost by 4 touchdowns or more, and the games really weren't that close. TCU was a missed field goal and an INT in the endzone away from putting up 45 against Utah in the first half. With the demise of OU, both teams find themselves without any real impressive wins. They should both be ranked in the 20s, not the teens.

Anonymous said...

No Virginia Tech anywhere? Mid- to high-teens makes sense, but somewhere behind Navy/beyond the top 25???

PeteP said...

Anonymous fake TCU fan: No TCU would ever make such silly statemnts, so you must be fake, a Longhorn or Boise fan....the Longhorn fans are very nervous about TCU being so close in the standings and Boise fans are just envious...which one are you?

Jams said...

I'm willing to accept Florida being ranked that low right now, especially after TCU has yet again blown out a team that was presumed to be competitive and Florida won closer than the experts expected. TCU now has fairly impressive victories over Utah, BYU, and Clemson. Florida, as stated, has LSU and a bunch of bowl-worthy but not poll-worthy teams.

However, if Florida wins out, I really hope you will reconsider their rankings, as their wins would likely trump TCU's most of the way down the list.

Also, I think Clemson is perhaps a little undervalued, as your #3 and #8 teams account for 2 of their 3 losses (and both were quite close). I'm sure a resume comparison would be at least a push between them and several other teams from #16-23.

Ry said...

That is quite the jump for BYU. Was their 5 point victory over a winless New Mexico team really that impressive? The Lobos kicking game left 10 points on the field (0/3 FGs and a missed XP).

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