Week 9 Final CBS Sports BlogPoll Ballot

by Bud Elliott on Oct 29, 2008 7:00 AM EDT in FSU Football

This is not a power poll. I don't attempt to rank teams based on how good I think they are. I only rank teams based on their resume. The poll is designed to be dynamic. I try to start from scratch every week. I do attempt to reward teams for "quality losses", while punishing them for bad performances. I do not give excessive credit for stomping horrible teams. As always, I want your help. Keep in mind though that I don't want "team X is way better than team Y." I do want "team A has a better resume than team B, you should make the change." Power poll rankings are dumb. The teams ranked 1, 3, 4, 13, 20 all lost to lesser ranked or unranked foes this past weekend. I do not consult major polls when doing this. Their record of futility is clear. Let the teams earn their rankings on the field. I try to remove as much subjectivity as possible. This system is not perfect.

Rank	Team	Schedule Strength and (Losses)

1	Texas	I
2	Alabama	Will
3	Penn State	Fill
4	Texas Tech	This
5	Southern Cal	In
6	Oklahoma State	when
7	Florida	the
8	Georgia	new
9	Oklahoma	numbers
10	Boise State	are
11	TCU	published
12	Utah	(probably)
13	North Carolina	late
14	Missouri	Wednesday
15	Ohio State
16	Michigan State
17	Florida State
18	Minnesota
19	Oregon
20	California
21	Maryland
22	Georgia Tech
23	Connecticut
24	West Virginia
25	Virginia

Themes:

Punish Ohio State! Our readers were unanimous in their disapproval of my initial placement of the Buckeyes, and they were correct to be unhappy. OSU moves from 10 to 15 upon reconsideration.

I like to reward playing well against good teams, win or lose, and punish losing to poor teams more harshly than I reward defeating poor teams. This is why North Carolina is so high. They have quite the resume of wins, have faced a difficult schedule, and their 2 losses are by 3 points.

Reward Grinders. I like to reward those who play difficult schedules.

I am really punishing these mid majors for their schedule strength. While big boy teams battle through their conference schedules, teams like Ball State play schedule padding fodder. There is no way these teams could hang with the big conference guys on a week to week basis. The attrition would eat them alive. I did not forget to rank Tulsa and Ball State. If any team in a major conference played their schedule, wouldn’t they be crucified in the media? NO team currently in this poll would have any trouble running through their two schedules unbeaten, and I think that says something about the evolution of our poll, as the resume system starts to produce a de facto power poll. That said, TCU, Boise, and Utah schedule much better than Ball State or Tulsa.

FSU: We have a chance to move up a ton in the coming weeks. Right now, however, our loss to Wake looks terrible, and our Colorado win is less impressive. The main reason I am not ranking FSU higher, however, is that we've only played 7 games, while most other teams have played 8 or 9. Those extra win points help those other clubs.

Rankings by Conference

B 12: 5, all in the top 12

SEC: 3, but all in the top 10.

ACC: 5, only 2 in the top 20.

Pac 10: 3, but only 1 in the top 20 (USC)

Big 10: 4, but 3 outside the top 15

Big East: 2, but #'s 23 and 24

MWest: 2

WAC: 1

Key Games This Week:

USF @ Cinci

NorthWestern @ Minn

Wisky @ MSU

Tulsa @ Arkansas

Oregon @ California

Florida @ Georgia

Texas @ TTech

FSU @ GTech

So, how did I do in the revisions?

Check out these 2 links:

Paul Johnson's offense explained, part 1

Chantrant talks to Paul Johnson about his offense.

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Questions for the GT Blogger

Questions for GT writer
Strategy

The teams that have been most effective in slowing the option, have they been bringing the SS up in the box to play the pitch man? If not, how have teams stopped Gtech’s running attack? Did the Runnin’ Bulldogs of Gardner-Webb expose something besides the 3rd string QB?

Everette Brown (6-4 255) is a First Round defensive end for the ‘Noles. Up until last week, he hadn’t seen anything but double teams. Virginia Tech foolishly tried to single block him, and that was a mistake (5 TFL’s, 3 Sacks). Your LT Gardner is pretty good (1st Team ACC). I assume you’ll attempt to slow Everette via option passing and play action, but if you get in 3rd and long, will Paul Johnson use help, or will he roll the dice with Gardner? On any given option play run to Everette Brown’s side, would you prefer: a) that the QB pitch the ball to the RB, even if it means Brown gets a hard clean shot on the QB? b) that the QB cut inside for a short gain, but avoid a big Brown hit?

In your opinion and from what you have seen so far this year from GT what do you think are the biggest advantages and disadvantages of the triple option? Do you prefer the backup QB, who ran the Option in HS and seems to protect the ball better, while maybe not being the caliber of athlete of your current starter?

Phil Steele ranks GT’s special teams 105th in the nation. Don’t know anything about your kicker but i see that he hasn’t converted on anything longer than 39 yards. Is this an ability issue? Do the special teams worry you? Has the kicking woes caused Johnson to think differently about 4th downs?

GT leads the ACC with 26. Would you attribute this to players still not being 100% comfortable with the new offense as i’m sure it takes a lot of focus to execute correctly? How much are we blowing this out of proportion, given that since Tech is so run heavy, they have more opportunities to fumble? I ran some math here, 26 fumbles on 386 carries is a fumble every 14.8 carries, or 6.8% of the time.

We know about Micheal Johnson, Nesbitt, Dwyer, Vance Walker, and Demarrius Thomas. Give us a name who will have to step up in order for Ga Tech to win this game (even if it means stepping up to average as opposed to poorly).

Is there an area that you perceive as a weakness that the opposition has yet to exploit?

GT has basically ruled out any chance of starting CB CB Jahvid World-Daniels and Starting WR Tyler Melton playing in this game. What about Starting Safety Dominique Reese (concussion), and Starting OL Andrew Smith (Concussion)? Given that young players often fare better with man principles do you anticipate increased use of man coverage due to the newly forced youth/ inexperience in the secondary?

Rivalry

The 1992 FSU-GT game was a big turning point for Seminole football. Charlie Ward’s comeback cemented the fast break offense as an FSU staple. Is that a game Tech fans still talk about? Is there speculation on whether the GT program was as adversely affected by the loss as FSU was positively affected by the win?

Who do Yellow Jacket fans consider their biggest ACC rival? If not FSU, where do we fall in that pecking order?

As a fan, when you first learned that Paul Johnson would replace Chan Gailey what was your initial reaction knowing that the triple option would be coming with him from Navy??

Has GTech’s performance this year been a surprise to you? What direction do you see this team going in the next 2-3 years?

Fun Questions
1) Don’t you love being yelled at by the women who work at the Varsity?
3) My wife and I are traveling from Chicago to see the game, any good places to eat close to the stadium?

Questions I will take
2) To most effectively run a Triple Option consistently you need a good Fullback. There has to be a real threat to make the LB’s hesitate. How is yours?

1) What if anything can be learned about the way VTech played against the Noles in the first half last week? Do the Yellow Jackets have the speed/talent on defense to consistently blitz?

How is Nesbitts arm? (not statistically but in regards to his accuracy, velocity, etc).

How good are your DE’s & how would you rank them as a unit in the conference?