Two teams. Team A narrowly defeats a defending division champion and consistent powerhouse that came in ranked in the top 25 by every significant outlet, and by most insignificant ones. Team B is completely crushed by a supposedly borderline outfit with a 6-10 conference record the last two years and that barely snuck onto one of the major preseason ballots while being left out of the other entirely. So which team is "better"?

However the coaches in the USA Today poll define it, Team A -- otherwise known as UCLA, opportunistic conquerer of the coaches' 18th-ranked team in the preseason, Tennessee, on Monday night -- remains superior to Team B, Clemson, which demonstrated precisely zero positive attributes against the very same Alabama team the coaches narrowly omitted from their initial ballot. The Tigers come in No. 22 in the Coaches poll, released today, four spots in front of the Bruins, who head the "Also Receiving Votes" category at No. 26. What a country!

The AP avoids falling victim to the same formulaic shuffling ("they lost bad, so a ten-spot drop seems about right . . . ") by relegating Clemson to the also-ran bin and ascending the Bruins to No. 23. It also rewards Alabama's big win more robustly, bumping the Tide from unranked to No. 13, where the coaches move Bama from 24th to 17th.

There's one thing they can both agree on: Southern Cal is totally, totally awesome. Whatever reservations the pollsters had about the Trojans that kept them from ranking SC No. 1 last month were thoroughly absolved by the monsoon of cardinal and gold touchdowns in Charlottesville. And by "reservations," I mean "Mark Sanchez." The sometimes sketchy offense looked good enough for the coaches to slide USC ahead of Georgia into the top slot, and for the AP to pull the rare double jump, bouncing SC from third to first, ahead of UGA and Ohio State. The Trojans were brilliant pretty much all the way around, although maybe the voters also had Beanie Wells' foot and Georgia's big lineman injuries in mind. And they do know Virginia was going to be terrible no matter who the Cavs played, right?

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Photo of Stafon Johnson and teammates celebrating via Getty Images.