Over the last few years, I have had an interesting relationship with polls. Initially, I was in the camp of no polls at all before the midway point of the season.
But my position had softened recently, and I was okay with a preseason ballot and then nothing until four weeks had been played.
However, I was asked by Bill C., ostensibly as the national college football writer here at Rock M Nation, to take over the vote for us with SB Nation's BlogPoll for this season.
Let's see if this plate of crow tastes like chicken, since I will have to vote every week. (Although I appreciate the fact that our poll is transparent, and I am sure I will be put in my place by our community here and the larger SB Nation family as well. Fun times.)
And so...without further ado, here is my preseason 2011 BlogPoll Ballot (after the jump):
Rock M Nation Ballot - Week 1
Rank | Team | Delta |
---|---|---|
1 | Oklahoma Sooners | -- |
2 | Alabama Crimson Tide | -- |
3 | Oregon Ducks | -- |
4 | Florida St. Seminoles | -- |
5 | Boise St. Broncos | -- |
6 | LSU Tigers | -- |
7 | Oklahoma St. Cowboys | -- |
8 | Wisconsin Badgers | -- |
9 | Nebraska Cornhuskers | -- |
10 | Stanford Cardinal | -- |
11 | Texas A&M Aggies | -- |
12 | Virginia Tech Hokies | -- |
13 | South Carolina Gamecocks | -- |
14 | TCU Horned Frogs | -- |
15 | Arkansas Razorbacks | -- |
16 | Notre Dame Fighting Irish | -- |
17 | Ohio St. Buckeyes | -- |
18 | Michigan St. Spartans | -- |
19 | Georgia Bulldogs | -- |
20 | West Virginia Mountaineers | -- |
21 | Auburn Tigers | -- |
22 | Mississippi St. Bulldogs | -- |
23 | Utah Utes | -- |
24 | Missouri Tigers | -- |
25 | USC Trojans | -- |
SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings "
A few thoughts:
1) If I am being true to the spirit of this, expect a lot of movement in my poll during the year. I don't want poll inertia to take over. We will see if that is the case.
2) For this, as the first poll, I tried to go with the "Who would beat whom on a neutral field equidistant from both campuses." At least, that is the theory I am operating under. Like most voters, though, I have no idea what would actually happen in that scenario.
3) I'm bearish on Stanford, A&M and TCU right now. I'm bullish on West Virginia, Utah and USC. Maybe it's because I live out west.
I will suffer your slings and arrows in the comments below.