Tilting at Windmills

Made some changes to reflect reader opinions.

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

What a wild weekend for college football. Outside of the top five, it’s a mess, and the bottom five isn’t any easier

Just a reminder, here’s the criteria that I’m using

The prior Top 25 will have no significant impact on the new one. Teams won’t hold positions playing scrubs in OOC play over teams with real wins in September. Just because a team is 18th doesn’t mean it moves up because the 17th ranked team loses. Teams resumes will go up and down as the season goes on.

As always comments are appreciated and like last week will be integrated into the final ballot which I will post on Tuesday.

Bounced this week

Mississippi: Looked awful against South Carolina. At best right now, they look like the 4^th best team in the SEC West. And 7^th best team in the SEC overall. They don’t have a quality win at all.

FSU: Dominated at home by a USF missing their star QB.

Washington: Just dominated by the Tree in Palo Alto. Pac 10 looks to be a very weak conference overall.

Almost ranked:

Georgia Tech: Big win over UNC. Offense and defense looked good.

Notre Dame: Weak schedule will allow them some wins. Very close to being 1-3, but they are 3-1.

Oregon: Like OU they had an awful week 1 and appear to be rallying afterwards. There’s no consistency right now in any Pac 10 team.

Made some changes per reader feedback.

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

This week presented the first real challenges in ranking

• Do you rank OU ahead of BYU?
• Do you rank Ohio State ahead of USC?
• How can you not rank FSU ahead of BYU?
• How high do you rank the young Canes?
• What’s more important how you lost, or how you won?

As always comments are appreciated and like last week will be integrated into the final ballot that I have to submit Tuesday night.

Just a reminder, here’s the criteria that I’m using

The prior Top 25 will have no significant impact on the new one. Teams won’t hold positions playing scrubs in OOC play over teams with real wins in September. Just because a team is 18th doesn’t mean it moves up because the 17th ranked team loses. Teams resumes will go up and down as the season goes on.

Well Week 2 was worse than Week 1, so in effort to restore some self esteem I’m going to track against the spread and head to head results from here on out.

1-6 brutal week against the point spread, but head to head I was 5-2.

4-13 for the season against the point spread so I don’t see TaW springing for a trip to Vegas any time soon.

A very nice selection of games this week as OOC action hits its’ peak.

• # 14 Georgia Tech at  #20Miami, FL.

Both teams have had impressive big wins in ACC play in extremely entertaining games. Course right now it’s hard to know how good their competition was (Clemson is an unknown, and FSU nearly let Jacksonville St catch them napping after their in state battle).

Miami -4.5

Taking GA Tech to win outright. Miami’s defense had real issues stopping the run against FSU and still is beat up with limited depth along their DL.

• Tulsa at #12 OU

Somehow OU is still ranked 12^th in the polls, and this game really will see how far OU has improved at Oline/QB/and hopefully WR since the BYU debacle.  OU fans will hope to see a dominating running game where Chris Brown and Demarco Murray are tearing up the TU defense, and OU’s defense is pressuring new QB GJ Kinne into mistakes.

OU -17.5

That’s a lot of points for young Landry Jones to try and cover especially when TU has a good offense. OU to win, but TU to score some late points making it closer on the scoreboard in in the 4^th QTR.

• #8 Cal at Minnesota

Last year a much hyped Cal team went out east to Maryland and laid an absolute egg at College Park. This year Cal is again on the fringe of the top five and huge primetime matchup with USC.

Cal -14

Cal will win and Cal will cover with the balanced attack of Kevin Riley passing the ball and Jahvid Best running the ball

• #19 Nebraska at #13 Virginia Tech

Nebraska has looked good knocking around two cupcakes in impressive fashion and their new QB Zach Lee is off to a good start. But the level of competition increases dramatically along with the change in venue.

VA Tech -5

Virginia Tech will win with running game, defense and special teams (not much of a prediction there). Look for NU’s new QB to struggle. Look for Va Tech to cover as well.

• #17 Cincinnati at Oregon State

This is a fascinating matchup as the Bearcats are off to a great start. Oregon State has had some struggles early, but Corvallis is a tough place to play. Big game for both teams especially if Cincinnati wants to bust a potential BCS title game picture if it can run the table in the Big East. Oregon State is clearly trailing Cal and USC right now, but ahead of disorganized Oregon in terms of Pac 10 hierarchy.  Just like beating Cinci helped OU last year, a win here could help Oregon State in BCS rankings.

Tossup

I’m picking Cincinnati to win. Brian Kelly with his returning QB Pike has things really rolling.

• FSU at  #7 Brigham Young

Which FSU teams shows up will go a long way to answering this contest. FSU looked great week 1 versus Miami, then awful in week 2. BYU is off to a great start upsetting OU (greatly aided by Sam Bradford’s absence in the second half) and thrashing Tulane.

BYU -7

BYU didn’t really get the full test from OU. FSU has a lot of speed on offense, but I can see BYU’s veteran offense putting up points as well. I think that this game will be a shootout. That FSU actually wins.

• #23 UGA at Arkansas

First real test for Petrino’s Pigs in his second year and the debut of Ryan Mallett on the SEC stage. UGA has had pretty good recent success in Fayetteville, but it’s been a really tough 3 game gauntlet for UGA and they are pretty beat up.

Tossup

I’m going with Arkansas at home.

• West Virginia at Auburn

Two under the radar programs that are off to great starts. Gus Malzahn appears to be working his offensive magic at Allbarn with basically the same talent that won a game 3-2 last year. WVU appears to have another playmaker at QB in Jarrett Brown to go with RB Noel Devine

Auburn -7

I think that this could be a very entertaining game with two teams that clearly could make BCS noise later in their conferences. Going with Auburn to win, but not to cover in a close game.

• Texas Tech at #2 Texas

Generally speaking first year Texas Tech QB starters don’t beat OU or UT, and Tech doesn’t play well in Austin at all. So everything points to a UT blowout of the  Pirate Ship Leach

Texas -18

UT didn’t look great last week in the first half versus against Wyoming and if Wyoming had any offense might have made a game of it into the second half.  I think UT wins, but the margin is not as big as usual, and questions about UT’s defense will come to light.

Here’s the final CBS blogopoll submission.
Based on reader feedback. I’ve dropped LSU down to 9th. Added Houston at 22nd, and moved OSU down to 23rd.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama
2	Southern Cal	5
3	California	1
4	Florida	1
5	Texas	1
6	Boise State	2
7	Brigham Young	2
8	Penn State	2
9	LSU	6
10	Mississippi	1
11	Ohio State	1
12	Georgia Tech	1
13	Virginia Tech	1
14	Utah	1
15	TCU	1
16	Miami (Florida)
17	Cincinnati
18	Missouri	1
19	Oregon State
20	Michigan
21	Kansas
22	Houston
23	Oklahoma State	21
24	Georgia
25	Baylor
Last week’s ballot

Well Week 1 didn’t go quite as well as I would have liked.

3-7 in my picks with upset picks of Cincinnati and Baylor being the highlights, and OSU winning by 14 probably being the real lowlight.

If last week was cupcake city, this week is cupcake nation.  The lineup of interesting games is pretty weak, but here are some games of overall interest .

• Clemson at Ga Tech
  • Tech -5.5
  • Early ACC battle that is usually a very entertaining game. Both teams took care of cupcakes in week one. CJ Spiller will be the focus of the Clemson offense, and GA Tech will counter with an option attack headlined by Jonathan Dwyer. Points scare me a little bit, but take Ga Tech to win and to cover.

• Iowa at Iowa State
  • Iowa – 6.5
  • Both teams looked pretty average in their openers with Iowa taken to the limit Northern Iowa. 6.5 points looks like 30 for these two pretty average teams. Taking ISU to cover, but not to win.

• Houston at Oklahoma State
  • OSU – 15
  • OSU has their highest earliest ranking in the history of the program. Kevin Sumlin has done a nice job at Houston, and Houston certainly is scoring points with a wide open spread attack. I can see Houston scoring some points, but not enough defense to stop OSU in Stillwater. It’s a scary amount of points when Houston could easily score a cheap td late, but OSU to cover.

• TCU at Virginia
  • TCU -11
  • It’s the opener for TCU, while Virginia apparently thought they were off last week losing to William and Mary. Al Groh is a Lazarus like entity as a coach just when you shovel dirt on him, somehow a resurrection occurs. TCU is a really a grind it out team with a good running game and great defense. I think 11 points is just too much. TCU wins but does not cover

• Notre Dame at Michigan
  • ND-3
  • Both teams had impressive openers and Michigan may actually now have a QB to run RichRod’s system. ND’s defense had a good opener, while Clausen did a good hitting his very good WR group. Going to go with ND by a touchdown to cover.
• UCLA at Tenn
  • Tenn -9
  • Tenn had a great opener against overmatched WKU. Bryce Brown showed a little of why he was the number one RB prospect in the nation last year. Doogie doesn’t quite have the firepower he needs at UCLA. 9 is a lot of points for this type of early matchup, but I expect Tenn to cover.

• South Carolina at UGA
  • UGA -7
  • The games between these two teams are usually ugly grind it out defensive battles. Nothing about their week one action would seem to change that pattern. 7 points is way too much, but look for UGA to win.
• USC at Ohio State
  • USC -7
  • I was all ready to call for the upset and go with the Buckeyes. Then the Suckeyes struggled to beat Navy last week. It’s clearly shaken my confidence in the home field of the horseshoe rattling young Mr. Barkley and of the Ohio State offense attacking a new USC defense. Take USC to cover and almost rendering the Big Ten irrelevant in the BCS title hunt.

So here’s the Updated Preseason TaW Top 25.

For this fall, TaW been added to the CBS Sports  Blog Poll.

Acceptance into this aggregated poll, means a couple of things from a process standpoint.

1. I will have to submit an initial Top 25 by 10am Monday Morning
2. By Wednesday 10am, I will have to submit a final 25, allowing time for and hopefully incorporating some spirited reader feedback.
3. I have to submit a final preseason poll by August 24th. So please give me some serious feedback. (And OU is staying 2, Texas is at 3, so let’s leave that topic alone)

A couple of reminders of how I am doing this Top 25. It’s all about your current resume. Prior to college football week one, everyone’s resume is wiped clean.

The prior Top 25 will have no lasting directional impact on the new one.

Teams won’t hold positions playing scrubs in OOC play over teams with real wins in September. Just because a team is 18th doesn’t mean it moves up because the 17th ranked team loses, etc.  Who you play (and who they have played), where you play, and how well you play will matter. I will be reviewing box scores, drives charts, etc (did your 2nd team defense give up 2 cheap meaningless tds for instance) for games I cannot watch.  It won’t just be a final score point differential.

To provide a guide of what might happen Week 1, I’ve listed first week opponents and what that might do to the rankings.  The first couple of weeks are going to see A LOT of movement, but by first week in October things should be settled with most teams having several solid games to use for evaluation.