Animated Drive Chart and Week 12 CBS Sports Blogpoll *Draft Ballot, & Daily Notes

by Bud Elliott on Nov 17, 2008 5:00 AM EST in FSU Football Comment 5 comments

We have some really good discussion going on now in the threads below. I'll let those continue and post some more original thoughts tonight. For now, let me know what changes I need to make on the Blogpoll.

Week 12 CBS Sports Blogpoll Draft

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 16, 19, 23, 24 all lost to lesser ranked or unranked foes this past weekend. Several others had scares How are those power polls working for them? 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. The AP Poll and it's counterparts are silly. Ranking teams based on who you think is good is not going to work. We don't know how great teams truly are until they play the games on the field. I rank what happens on the field. This system is not perfect. 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.

Themes:

Reward Grinders. I like to reward those who play difficult schedules. Those mid-majors do not have to prepare for difficult games on a weekly basis, and I take that into account. So, with that said...Goodbye Mid Majors. After finally getting a chance to watch these guys, I realized that they are not at the level of ranked teams from major conferences. Additionally, their schedule strengths were incredibly inflated because they had all played each other, who were also ranked highly. These teams are not talented. They are able to focus on their 1 game of the year against a big-6 conference team for several weeks. The BCS team views them as a schedule break. Letdown city. I am really against power-polling, but none of these teams deserve to play in a BCS game and I am no longer rewarding teams in any way for simply not losing to the likes of Eastern Illinois and Nevada.

Rank	Team

1	Texas Tech
2	Alabama
3	Florida
4	Texas
5	Southern Cal
6	Oklahoma
7	Oklahoma State
8	Penn State
9	Georgia
10	Ohio State
11	Missouri
12	Michigan State
13	Utah
14	North Carolina
15	Pittsburgh
16	Miami (Florida)
17	Oregon State
18	Cincinnati
19	California
20	Oregon
21	Maryland
22	Iowa
23	Mississippi
24	South Carolina
25	Georgia Tech