College Football BlogPoll Rankings, Week 13: Boise State’s Back, Everything Else Is The Same

Boredom has set in a bit as the biggest story of the past few weeks has been the Cam Newton investigation rather than anything that happens on the field. Oregon is holding steady atop the BlogPoll rankings with the same two-to-one edge in first place votes it’s had since the Ducks and Tigers settled into the top two spots.

Both cede a few first place votes to a newly resurgent Boise State, which rides a 51-0 shellacking of Fresno State to No. 3, albeit by less than a tenth of a point. With Nevada on deck for Boise, a win there should solidify their third-place status; with Alabama and South Carolina on deck for Auburn they won’t rise any higher unless someone actually loses.

The one member of the top ten to do so last week was Nebraska, going down 9-6 to A&M and causing Bo Pelini’s head to explode. In one of those annoying poll quirks that always seem to happen, Nebraska slides down just enough to be directly in front of A&M. A couple of other small slides come because of poor performance in wins: LSU loses a couple spots after struggling with Ole Miss and Michigan State loses one because they required a frantic comeback to beat Purdue.

Justify Your Existence

It’s pretty boring out there this week, with only one difference between the blog and AP polls that’s anything other than a flip of adjacent teams: bloggers remember James Madison and have Virginia Tech behind Oklahoma and Missouri. In the coaches’ poll the only two-spot difference is bloggers being higher on Stanford. I can’t say anything looks particularly egregious save for some X > Y on the field but X < Y in the poll rankings.

Wack Ballot Watchdog

Now on to the extracurriculars. First up are the teams which spur the most and least disagreement between voters as measured by standard deviation. Note that the standard deviation charts halt at #25 when looking for the lowest, otherwise teams that everyone agreed were terrible (say, Eastern Michigan) would all be at the top.

Most Disagreement

After a brief flirtation with BCS conferences, the most disagreement award returns to the impressive mid-majordom that is its true home. Also people are understandably confused by a team that looks like it will win the ACC but lost to a I-AA team, which yeah.

Ballot Math

First up are “Mr. Bold” and “Mr. Numb Existence.” The former goes to the voter with the ballot most divergent from the poll at large. The number you see is the average difference between a person’s opinion of a team and the poll’s opinion.

Mr. Bold

As was the case last week, the Mr. Bold winner takes it largely on the rankings of various mid-major teams. Last week it was excessive enthusiasm; this week it’s excessive skepticism. Hog DB has TCU No. 8 and Boise No. 10. The inclusion of Florida at 21 is another weirdness, and from there it’s a bunch of teams off a spot or three.

Mr. Numb Existence

Given the blog name you’d think Addicted To Quack would be on the other list, but here they are with an extremely low error under 0.8. Perfect ballot? Nyet, but not bad: we get all the way to ten before ATQ flips Alabama and Michigan State.

Next we have the Coulter/Kos Award and the Straight Bangin’ Award, which are again different sides of the same coin. The CKA and SBA go to the blogs with the highest and lowest bias rating, respectively. Bias rating is calculated by subtracting the blogger’s vote for his own team from the poll-wide average. A high number indicates you are shameless homer. A low number indicates that you suffer from an abusive relationship with your football team.

The CK Award

Utah’s been on the hotseat for most of the year and soldiered through it until back-to-back demolitions at the hands of TCU and Notre Dame put the CK Award back in the black for the year both technically (wins are measured against the spread) and karmically. The Mountain West Connection soldiered on, however, and had Utah atop the list again last week for a game against San Diego State in which the Aztecs were actually favored by three. Utah won, pushing the CK Award to 6-5 on the year.

We finally have an end to the great Did Utah Cover contest of 2010, however, thanks to an enthusiastic Oklahoma State fan edging the Cowboys up to No. 6. It’s a dangerous week for this, as OSU has Bedlam this weekend. They are 2.5 point favorites.

The Straight Bangin’ Award

There is essentially no winner this week, as the hypothetical winner didn’t rank an unranked team getting a quarter of a point per ballot.

Swing is the total change in each ballot from last week to this week (obviously voters who didn’t submit a ballot last week are not included). A high number means you are easily distracted by shiny things. A low number means that you’re damn sure you’re right no matter what reality says.

Mr. Manic Depressive

So… this is how boring the poll has gotten of late: the numbers here are numbers you might see win the other half of this category in an average—not even a crazy—week. Wither upsets? Corn Nation edges out the field because they dropped Nevada seven spots for no apparent reason after the Wolfpack obliterated New Mexico State.

Mr. Xanax

Again, massive boredom in CB means low numbers. ATQ dropped Nebraska a little less than others and takes it here.