FCB Top 25 for CBSSports.com Blogpoll – cutting bait in Week 11
November 16th, 2009 by Vince Mullins
No changes to the Top Eight. Lots of changes after that. This is what a bunch of solid two and three loss teams on the heels of major upsets will do to what can usually be a rational exercise of ranking the top teams in college football.
But what is rational? If you use recent month as your only guideline then you might wonder where is Rutgers and Houston? If you are like most fans and pundits, it took you a while to get used to the absence of Oklahoma and Georgia. And if you are looking for Notre Dame then quite profound is your denial of reality.
With the help of my trusted advisor, fan of the site and Miami (FL) Hurricane apologist Jeremy Jones, I give you this week’s Top 25. A couple of quick essays after the jump…
A dark shadow falls over the Trojan Empire. (Icon SMI)
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| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Florida | |
| 2 | Alabama | |
| 3 | Texas | |
| 4 | TCU | |
| 5 | Cincinnati | |
| 6 | Boise State | |
| 7 | Pittsburgh |  1 |
| 8 | Georgia Tech |  1 |
| 9 | Oregon | 3 |
| 10 | LSU | 1 |
| 11 | Oklahoma State | 4 |
| 12 | Ohio State | 2 |
| 13 | Virginia Tech | |
| 14 | Stanford | 11 |
| 15 | Clemson | |
| 16 | Wisconsin | 6 |
| 17 | Oregon State | 7 |
| 18 | Iowa | 1 |
| 19 | Utah | 9 |
| 20 | Southern Cal | 4 |
| 21 | Miami (Florida) | 10 |
| 22 | Penn State | 3 |
| 23 | Brigham Young | 3 |
| 24 | Nebraska | |
| 25 | Central Michigan | |
| Last week’s ballot | ||
Dropped Out: Houston (#13), Arizona (#18), South Florida (#21), West Virginia (#23).
Weekly essays on selected college football issues:
Houston wholeheartedly deserves to be knocked out of the Top 25 poll by every human voter. Case Keenum still holds a legitimate claim to Heisman Trophy consideration, but the national scene should not embrace a team that has lost to UTEP and UCF in the same season. To make matters worse, I watched the 2H of the UCF game once I heard the score. I watched UCF stage a remarkable comeback against Marshall to a half-empty stadium. The Knights were clearly the better team on both sides of the ball Sunday and they are a slightly above average squad. That fact alone should illustrate that the shiny bauble that is the Houston Cougars should be returned to the pawn shop. Nice win against a fully loaded Oklahoma State. Well done taking out Mississippi State and Texas Tech. I hope Keenum can rack up some big yardage and TD numbers to set the table for a true 2010 run at the Heisman. But Cougars, your work is done here.
Jeremy and I downgraded the Big TenEleven. Great theatre was staged in C-Bus but at the end of the day, you Ohio State Buckeyes struggled with a Ricky-Stanzi-less Iowas Hawkeyes squad (typing that makes it sound like the inclusion of Stanzi makes them a contender, let us not forget that he pulled rabbits out of his hat weekly). On that note, another ugly win by Penn State over the same team that every other Big TenEleven team did – the Indiana Hoosiers. The only reason Ohio State moved higher was the drop of Houston and Utah’s acquiescence to the hallowed Horned Frogs.
We feel that voters have got the MWC a little mixed up, so we want to set BYU and Utah up correctly. Utah should throttle BYU on Nov. 28 and the final decision point for us was the quality of losses. Granted, those Horned Frogs abused both the Utes and Coogs, but the Utes other loss was to a tough Oregon team in Eugene whereas BYU played gracious host to the speedy but flaky Florida State Seminoles. The Mormon Bomb Squad also has many soft wins including this weekend over New Mexico. So unlike the other polls, we ignore the recency effect and slot the Utes higher.
Unlike previous weeks, it was tough to leave some teams out. California, Navy, Rutgers and Missouri are knocking on the door after tough stretches. Thankfully for them the rest of the field is falling back to them. Why Central Michigan at #25? Strong two-loss team that is undefeated in MAC play (so is Temple, another team deserving real attention) and has a win over Michigan State and a good loss to Arizona to open the stadium in hostile territory. Plus, I like my #25 to be ceremonial if at all possible to highlight a quality but underloved team. Fire up Chips!
You got a take on the MWC that I didn’t outline? You want to defense the USF Bulls autumn fall? Comments are below my friends.
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