2012 BlogPoll, Week 1: USC, Alabama Rise As Honey Badger-Less LSU Falls

Losing Tyrann Mathieu may not be a death blow to LSU in 2012 — but it dropped the Tigers out of the top spot in the BlogPoll.

After LSU was No. 1 in our summer BlogPoll, USC and Alabama have jumped it to take the top two places in the Week 1 BlogPoll for the 2012 season.

USC beats Alabama by a very slim margin, just .13 points per blog, and LSU isn’t far back of the defending champion Crimson Tide, checking in a mere .31 points per blog behind.

All three teams combine for 70 of the 72 first-place votes, and are well ahead of Oregon, which receives a first-place vote and ranks fourth, and Oklahoma, in fifth.

Florida State, Georgia, Michigan, South Carolina and Wisconsin round out the top 10, while Arkansas falls from No. 10 to No. 12 after the Bobby Petrino fallout.

The only other team to take a first-place vote is Texas, which moves to No. 15 and makes the biggest jump from the previous preseason poll.

Wack Ballot Watchdog

Someone voted Texas No. 1... and it wasn’t a Texas blogger. No, that was Luke Zimmermann of Land-Grant Holy Land, who explains the move as a show of faith in Manny Diaz and Bryan Harsin.

Now on to the extracurriculars. First up are the teams which spur the most 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, UTEP) would all be at the top.

Who knows how Ohio State will perform in the first year of Urban Meyer’s tenure? Not the BlogPoll voters, who slot the Buckeyes in at No. 18 and yet have a huge amount of disagreement on whether they fit there, in the top 10 (where nine voters have them), or outside the top 25 (14 bloggers left the Bucks off). Texas, entering Year 2 of the Harsin Experiment, takes second, while TCU, which may see its season go up in smoke, comes in third.

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.

TCU is sixth and Washington is 13th on House of Sparky’s ballot. Barking Carnival’s ballot has Florida State second, Ohio State fifth, and Utah 15th. There is little to be lost by being bold in the preseason.

Garnet and Black Attack wins this despite having the top four in a completely different order (LSU, USC, Oregon, Alabama) than the BlogPoll consensus.

Barking Carnival’s wacky ballot takes a gold to go with its silver for boldness, as awarding Texas the No. 7 spot earns high marks for audacious homerism.

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.

Swing is sort of pointless when going from one preseason ballot to another, but ATVS’ double-digit moves for Florida State and Ohio State give it a lopsided victory here.

The biggest change that Let’s Go Rockets made? Moving LSU from second to fourth and replacing it with Florida State. Confidence is fun!

While we’re here, let’s watch some of the many fine college football videos from SB Nation’s YouTube channel: