College Football BlogPoll, Week 14: LSU Unanimous No. 1, But ‘Bama Has Competition For No. 2

LSU is once again No. 1 in the College Football BlogPoll. The Tigers take the top spot unanimously, earning all 65 first-place votes and holding more than a point-per-ballot lead on the No. 2 Alabama Crimson Tide.

Alabama, currently in line to play LSU in the BCS National Championship Game, is not BlogPoll voters’ unanimous No. 2, but the Tide still have nearly as large a lead over Oklahoma State as LSU has over the Tide.

Elsewhere, Houston rises to sixth, Arkansas falls six spots after its second loss of the 2011 season, Oklahoma re-joins the top 10 just in time for its rivalry showdown with Oklahoma State, and a swath of six teams in the poll’s gooey center sees no movement.

Wack Ballot Watchdog

Garnet and Black Attack’s ballot ranks both Virginia Tech and Houston ahead of fifth-place Alabama. Tulsa, fresh off a beatdown by Houston, makes the cut at No. 25 on Rocky Top Talk’s ballot.

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 No. 25 when looking for the lowest, otherwise teams that everyone agreed were terrible (say, Akron) would all be at the top.

USC is about as polarizing a team as possible: though the Trojans earned as high a ranking as fifth in one ballot, and earned 37 top-10 votes, they don’t appear on nine ballots, and thus sit squarely in the center of the BlogPoll. Houston and Virginia Tech, both owners of gaudy records compiled against relatively easy slates, elicit significant disagreement, too.

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.

In case you didn’t remember, Virginia was blanked, 38-0, by Virginia Tech in Week 13. That impressive victory earned the Hokies a three-spot boost in From Old Virginia’s ballot — to No. 10. Moving Oklahoma up to No. 3 and dropping Houston to No. 16 may have helped make that particular ballot aberrational, too.

The biggest reaction Card Chronicle had to Week 13’s results was an eight-spot drop for Arkansas, not much different from the BlogPoll’s composite six-place penalty. Perhaps the Louisville blog merely wants to go with the flow in the hopes that it helps the Cardinals to a BCS bowl?

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.

Having USC eighth is not weird on its own, but having the Trojans there as a USC-affiliated blog is good enough to get this top spot this week, so congratulations, BCS Know How.

Yahoo!‘s Matt Hinton’s allegiance to Southern Mississippi rarely comes into play in BlogPoll voting, but not ranking his Golden Eagles on his Dr. Saturday ballot in a week that sees them get the No. 24 spot in the BlogPoll is enough to get him a win in this particular category.

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.

The Unbalanced Line doesn’t have Oregon ranked. I’m sure that was a good idea at the time.

Cardiac Hill’s biggest alteration to its Week 13 ballot for Week 14 is a six-spot drop for Clemson. That’s remarkable consistency.