Monday, September 6, 2010

The Guru's BlogPoll Ballot (Week 2)

Boise State withstood a Virginia Tech comeback with a rally of its own Monday night. Now it appears that little is standing in the way of a third BCS bowl appearance by the Broncos, and possibly even a spot in the BCS national title game.

Well ... they still have 11 more games to play, so let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. The Guru did move the Broncos up one spot to No. 2, ahead of a Texas team that was far from commanding in a lackluster victory over Rice.

The Guru's full ballot:


* No major shifting this week on the ballot as just about every ranked team did about what's expected of it. Two teams remain on the ballot despite losing openers: Pittsburgh (at Utah) and Virginia Tech (vs. Boise State).

* It was as ho-hum of an opening weekend as there has been in sometime. Yes, two I-AA teams pulled off upsets on the road at I-A schools (Jacksonville State in 2 OT over Ole Miss; North Dakota State over Kansas), but both of those losers are basically dogmeat programs, so there's no Michigan-oh-my-god-lost-to-Appalachian-State type of shock value.

* Speaking of the Wolverines, next week they'll face Notre Dame in yet another edition of who-can-get-off-the-doldrums tilt between two erstwhile elite programs. If you think the Irish are vastly overrated on the Guru's ballot ... you might be right, but let's wait a week. Last year Notre Dame was beaten nearly single-handedly by Tate Forcier. This year, Forcier might not make it to South Bend if he doesn't stop pouting.

* Fresno State makes an appearance on the Guru's ballot for the first time, at No. 19. The Bulldogs play as competitive a non-conference schedule as anyone in the country, and they may be a credible threat to Boise State when they hook up late in the season.

* Ten teams also received consideration for this week's ballot: North Carolina, Cincinnati, Miami (Fla.), Oregon State, Florida State, Arizona, Auburn, Clemson, Connecticut and Washington.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's a long way to go, but if Boise State makes it to the national championship game on the strength of a win over Virginia Tech (who stays in the top 25 based on their own weak schedule) then maybe that might a) push the AQ conference schools to want a playoff more and b) create an exodus of schools to become independent and schedule only 1 or 2 real games a year, then spend a lot of money on pre-season hype.

And even if Boise wins that game against, say, an over-rated Ohio State team, does that mean a team who can win 2 given 3+ weeks to prepare should be a national championship team? At least Florida, USC, and Ohio State must play several teams in the same league as them, often back to back.

Clark said...

I'm surprised you've left some of those top 10 teams that looked so-so against some weak competition up where they were before. I'm specifically thinking of Florida over Miami (OH) and OU over Utah State. Yes, they both won, but top 10 teams ought to look better than that when playing at home against over matched competition. Florida had 212 yards of total offense. OU gave up 341 yards passing to someone most people have never heard of.

Admittedly, completing an early ballot like this is tough. My general commentary is that about 10 teams are ranked too high, but I don't have a corresponding list of teams ranked too low.

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