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Black Heart Gold Pants Ballot - Week 5
| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Notre Dame Fighting Irish |
 1 |
| 2 | Alabama Crimson Tide |
2 |
| 3 | Florida Gators |
2 |
| 4 | Kansas St. Wildcats |
4 |
| 5 | Florida St. Seminoles |
2 |
| 6 | Oregon Ducks |
 -3 |
| 7 | Texas Longhorns |
-1 |
| 8 | Oregon St. Beavers |
1 |
| 9 | Texas Tech Red Raiders |
5 |
| 10 | South Carolina Gamecocks |
1 |
| 11 | Georgia Bulldogs |
1 |
| 12 | Stanford Cardinal |
-11 |
| 13 | Cincinnati Bearcats |
3 |
| 14 | Ohio St. Buckeyes |
3 |
| 15 | West Virginia Mountaineers |
3 |
| 16 | LSU Tigers |
-3 |
| 17 | Iowa St. Cyclones |
-7 |
| 18 | TCU Horned Frogs |
-3 |
| 19 | Mississippi St. Bulldogs |
2 |
| 20 | Arizona St. Sun Devils |
-1 |
| 21 | Texas A&M Aggies |
2 |
| 22 | UCLA Bruins | -- |
| 23 | Northwestern Wildcats | -- |
| 24 | Nebraska Cornhuskers | -- |
| 25 | Ohio Bobcats |
-5 |
| Dropouts: Michigan St. Spartans, Louisville Cardinals, Arizona Wildcats | ||
SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings "
So much for Stanford. The two-time defending Blogpoll top team went down to Washington in one of those games of weird circumstances: An odd midweek kickoff (at least for the Pac-12) in the loudest of all NFL stadiums against a team that had one pretty horrendous loss to a top team in a cross-country road game but had otherwise been solid. We probably should have seen it coming.
That moves Notre Dame into the top spot. Yes, Alabama's pure numbers are more impressive, but find a win on the Crimson Tide's schedule that is as good at this moment as the Fighting Irish's top two against Michigan State and Purdue. I'll save you the trip to Alabama's schedule page: It's not there. The two teams played and defeated Michigan -- Alabama more soundly than Notre Dame, to be fair -- but MSU, Purdue, and Navy trump Western Kentucky, Mississippi, Florida Atlantic, and Arkansas by a wide margin. Florida and Kansas State move up on further strengthening of their schedule, and Texas Tech makes the big move with a win over previously unbeaten Iowa State. Oregon drops on the mere fact that they faced Washington State and had the remainder of their schedule struggle. The rest of it is just oscillation.
I'm starting to feel like the overvaluation of LSU is going to be my cause celebre this season. Here's what the Tigers have done so far: A 38-point win over Washington that is truly excellent (and the only reason they're as high as they are in this poll), three wins over programs that are either in FCS (Towson) or should be (Idaho, North Texas), and a two-point home win over Auburn. That is not the profile of a top five team. Probably not worthy of the top 10. We're going to find out a lot more about them this week in The Swamp, and I get the sense it's not going to be good for them.
Blogpoll Games of the Week:
#16 LSU at #3 Florida: The rankings in this game are basically flipped by the mainstream polls. Vegas has LSU as a three-point favorite, so they're believing in the Tigers a lot more than I am. Probably not a good sign for me.
#11 Georgia at #10 South Carolina: Huge weekend in the SEC, so I'm going to go watch some deep fried Southern football, too. Problem is my game is Mizzou-Vanderbilt.
#17 Iowa State at #18 TCU: And so exits Iowa State from the Blogpoll...or does it? Iowa State wins one of these games every year, and we have enough evidence to show that Iowa wasn't that win. TCU was underwhelming against SMU this week, but does remain undefeated so far.
#15 West Virginia at #7 Texas: West Virginia's incredible offense finally gets a test (no, Baylor does not qualify as a test), as Texas brings an offense just as potent as the Bears' from last week and enough defense to make Geno Smith work a bit. This is usually where the Mountaineers stub their toe, and that Texas -6.5 line indicates Vegas thinks it's going to happen again.
Game of the Weak:
New Mexico St. at Idaho: The Vandals are the final team in the poll, number 124, dead last. They have been outscored in five losses 210-67. They lost to an FCS team. New Mexico State is a bit better -- at least they have a win over Sacramento State -- but their losses to the likes of New Mexico and Texas-San Antonio are enough to drop them into the Blogpoll bottom 20.
Iowa in the Poll:
Minnesota is back into the middle earth of the rankings. Floyd is home. Iowa is #44. Everything is right in the world.