Dr. Saturday - NCAAF

Now in its fourth year, the Blog Poll is a weekly effort of dozens of college football-centric Web sites representing a wide array of schools under the oversight of founder/manager/guru Brian Cook at MGoBlog. Its goal is to provide a more rigorous check on the mainstream polls that actually, like, count toward the mythical championship, and to put all biases in the open. But mainly, it’s fun.

This week’s poll is brought to you by rap supergroup Big Tymers, which reminds readers,

Ooh, Big Tymers in a private jet
Got the head of Universal to sign the check
Meanwhile Ludacris is out arrangin rovers
Every coast watch out cuz the South is takin' over
Uhh

As always, the criteria here is not "strength" or projection, but resumé, actual on-field accomplishment to date. This week, that's composed of four factors: record (obviously), "quality" wins, overall strength of schedule (as tallied by Jeff Sagarin, for the sake of time and consistency) and overall margin of victory.

Put it all together, and you get -- for now anyway -- ESSSSSSS EEEEEEE SEEEEEEEE. Four weeks in, the SEC occupies spots two through six, and the distinction isn't arbitrary: Florida (over Miami and Tennessee) and Georgia (South Carolina and Arizona State) both have two fairly quality wins by mostly wide margins, while LSU (over Auburn) and Alabama (by a huge margin over Clemson) have two of the strongest wins of the early season; after destroying Arkansas, Alabama is only dinged by a lazy effort against Tulane, where the Gators, Bulldogs and Tigers have appropriately dominated their cruise control games. Vanderbilt is a tougher call because the Commodores don't have a great win, and there's essentially no gap between Vandy at six and Wisconsin at twelve.

That group of teams, between Vandy and Wisconsin, has been winning impressively over middle of the pack competition like Washington, Cincinnati, Ole Miss, UCLA and Michigan, none of which we can make a strong judgment about at this point. As opposed to, say, Auburn or Ohio State, which don't appear here because neither has a real quality win to its name yet, but both of which we can still classify as valuable wins for now (yes, I recognize the inconsistency in that assumption, but these are the compromises we make).

East Carolina is the first team this season to appear on my ballot with a loss, a bad loss at that, but the Pirates' quality wins over Virginia Tech and West Virginia still carry some considerable weight, even as the Mountaineers are rapidly losing value. Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech are in the same boat: both have a pair of decent wins, and close, acceptable losses that don't sink them completely.

Beyond that, there's a string of Big 12 teams (and Tulsa) with perfect records and impressive margins of victory, but not much substance to their style -- between Texas, Texas Tech, Missouri and Nebraska, the only win of substance is Missouri's shootout with Illinois, which most recently struggled to put away UL-Lafayette. Even with the Illini on the board, the Tigers' strength of schedule is near rock-bottom according to Sagarin and will take a few Big 12 victims to put them in the upper echelon here (though I fully expect Mizzou to get there).

Caveat: In retrospect, I'd probably bump Missouri considerably and move South Florida in front of Boise State and Colorado. Sorry, Bulls -- I'll get you back, as long as you keep winning.

There's still time for all that to sort itself out as the data mounts. As always, I'll begin from scratch next week, when everything will be completely different.

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Photo of Harry Coleman via Getty Images.

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17 Comments

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  1. chris w
    1. Posted by chris w Thu Sep 03, 2009 3:20 pm EDT

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    By what you haveve written about the SEC, it appears USC has one valuable win over OSU. The win over UVA is impressive on the scoreboard, but UVA is clearly not a good team. Could you say something about why USC is your number one? Did you explain this a previous week, and I just put a mental block on it?
  2. Paul
    2. Posted by Paul Thu Sep 03, 2009 4:42 pm EDT

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    Matt can explain it better, perhaps, but by Sagarin's opponents' rating, USC's win over Ohio State is still the best win in anyone's resume. I have a bunch of different objective measures of resume-strength, and USC ranks #1 on more of them than not, but on some of 'em the Trojans' are lower than 30th (those are the ones most affected by # of games played, and the two bye weeks in the first 4 hurt USC.)
  3. The Pest
    3. Posted by The Pest Thu Sep 03, 2009 4:37 pm EDT

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    USC could not hang in SEC. USC with out the media hype is just another football team. SEC teams have a tougher set of games in their division than any other division.
  4. M B
    4. Posted by M B Thu Sep 03, 2009 3:09 pm EDT

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    The Pest, you're kidding me right?
    Have you seen the horrific QB play of just about every top SEC team? And then you mean to tell me that a USC team that has play makers on both sides of the ball and at every skill position, and an NFL caliber line backing corp couldn't hang with such SEC luminaries as Tennessee, Auburn, South Carolina, MSU, Arkansas etc etc?
    At BEST there are only 3 teams in the SEC who could make a game of it against USC. Those being LSU, Georgia and Florida. Florida would have to hope their secondary could stop USC, LSU would have to hope that one of their shaky QBs wouldn't kill them, and Georgia would probably need to find someone besides Greene and Moreno who could make a play.
  5. Alaska Hokie
    5. Posted by Alaska Hokie Thu Sep 03, 2009 4:36 pm EDT

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    Thanks for selecting Tech, but I probably would've held off until after this week's game at Nebraska in order to make the plunge. I think if Tech can somehow pull off a win way out there in the wilds of Nebraska, I'll take a big sigh of relief over this season.
    M B, I disagree. It's too early in the season for me to make an accurate judgment about where USC stacks up, and the same goes for the undefeated SEC teams. We've only played four games, and there's a lot left to be decided. Making judgments like that after four games is just silly.
  6. funtwobeme
    6. Posted by funtwobeme Thu Sep 03, 2009 4:04 pm EDT

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    miami was down 9-3 at florida with 8 mins to go, just whipped the aggies at a%26m, and surely have a better record so far this year than VaTech or GaTech or giggle/snort cal.
  7. dethwing
    7. Posted by dethwing Thu Sep 03, 2009 3:42 pm EDT

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    Cal is 2-1, not 3-1. Maryland, the team that beat them, is 3-1. I would say ranking Cal and not Maryland is rather hypocritical.
  8. Dan W
    8. Posted by Dan W Thu Sep 03, 2009 8:18 pm EDT

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    yeah, USC can't hang with the SEC. well let's check out the last few times they played 'em.
    arkansas - won 50-14
    arkansas - won 70-17
    auburn - won 24-0
    Well, uh, i guess auburn only lost by 24...
    Fact is that USC does much better in ooc games than in conference. They would dominate anywhere.
  9. scottsexfan
    9. Posted by scottsexfan Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:08 pm EDT

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    M B, you're talking about "Greene?" David Greene graduated about 4 years ago, and trust me, USC would not be able to stop the big 4 Stafford, Massaquoi, Green, and Moreno. Heck, I bet even Tennessee could beat USC. The SEC is the best conference in college football, period.
  10. SpartanDan
    10. Posted by SpartanDan Thu Sep 03, 2009 8:11 pm EDT

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    dethwing: Let's look at the resumes together, shall we?
    Maryland: beat Cal by 8 (solid), beat Eastern Michigan by 27 (meh, it's Eastern), beat Delaware by 7 (not good), lost to Middle Tennessee State by 10 (horrid).
    Cal: beat MSU by 7 (solid), beat Washington State by 63 (decent - I know WSU is terrible, but they're better than EMU and Cal slapped them silly), lost to Maryland by 8 (bad).
    Even with Maryland beating Cal, Cal has done more to this point in the season. And it's not particularly close.
  11. SpartanDan
    11. Posted by SpartanDan Thu Sep 03, 2009 8:11 pm EDT

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    scott - Tennessee couldn't beat a UCLA team that got annihilated by BYU and lost to Arizona. There's absolutely no way Tennessee would be less than a 21-point underdog at USC, and even at Neyland USC would destroy them.
    The SEC is the best conference, but not by anywhere near as much as you think.
  12. Barry Zuckerkorn
    12. Posted by Barry Zuckerkorn Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:39 pm EDT

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    Looks like all of the SEC mouth-breathers were in full force on this poll... Vanderbilt in the top 10?! Seriously?! They struggled with Ole Miss! Nothing says you're ready for the top 10 like scrapping one out with Ole Miss. I love how a team such as Missouri who has already played, and beaten a ranked team, and scored no less than 40 points a game barely makes the list at #23.
  13. Dan W
    13. Posted by Dan W Thu Sep 03, 2009 8:18 pm EDT

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    scottsexfan
    "Heck, I bet even Tennessee could beat USC. The SEC is the best conference in college football, period. "
    Somebody make sure this guy stays away from Vegas!!!
  14. Spazzy McGee
    14. Posted by Spazzy McGee Thu Sep 03, 2009 7:39 pm EDT

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    Whoo go cal top 25 baby
  15. SpartanDan
    15. Posted by SpartanDan Thu Sep 03, 2009 8:11 pm EDT

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    Andrew: This is the Doc's ballot, not the poll itself. And one oddity of his ballot is that it's not his opinion of who would beat who in some hypothetical neutral-site game; it is purely based on who has done what so far this year. Missouri's win over Illinois has lost some of its luster after the Illinois squeaker against Louisiana-Lafayette, and they also allowed 450 yards passing to Juice Williams (who is not a particularly good QB), and their remaining games are cupcakes (including letting Buffalo hang around for most of the game). I'm not sure Vandy's wins over South Carolina and Ole Miss are enough to put them in the top 10 by resume myself, but if you read the post it's pretty much a dead heat from Vandy down to Wisconsin.
  16. Barry Zuckerkorn
    16. Posted by Barry Zuckerkorn Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:39 pm EDT

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    SpartanDan,
    Fair enough... Thanks for the clarification. And for the record... Doc, the comment wasn't geared toward you. I first saw the poll, then posted. Not a wise decision (I know). For those (if any) offended, I apologize.
  17. IDGAD
    17. Posted by IDGAD Thu Sep 03, 2009 8:27 pm EDT

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    January 9, 2009 _XXXXXXXXXXXXX_ fan’s blog comment,”How good can USC really be if they ran over _YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY_ last night at the Orange Bowl? Any team losing that badly can’t be any good and, therefore, the Trojan victory is clearly not a measure of their dubious merit.”

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