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| 1. Alabama. No reason at this point to place anyone else here. |
| 2. Arkansas. Status quo for no other reason than they haven't done anything to warrant docking them. |
| 3. Florida. Still not sure South Carolina defeats Florida on a neutral field. This weekend should tell us a lot. |
| 4. South Carolina. The Gamecocks have solidified their place here with the win against Georgia. Let's see whether they make things close against Furman first. |
| 5. Georgia. They played South Carolina well, and no one else played well enough to warrant dropping them. So they stay. |
| 6. Auburn. It might not have been the most impressive win against Mississippi State, but at least you can't say "It might not have been the most impressive win against Vanderbilt ..." |
| 7. LSU. Can you try defeating someone by something approaching a respectable margin? |
| 8. Kentucky. I have half a mind to rank them No. 7 until remembering what time of the year it is in Lexington: Cupcakefest! |
| 9. Mississippi State. By default for right now because their season has not included losing by 35 at home to a Pac-10 team, losing to an FCS team or being Vanderbilt. |
| 10. Tennessee. We saw a real game. |
| 11. Vanderbilt. Still has not lost to an FCS team. |
| 12. Ole Miss. No, that does not answer the many, many questions about Ole Miss. |
Yes, I know, the BlogPoll ballot is supposed to be posted by Monday morning. But I was not alone this week -- cough cough. In any case, here's your humble correspondents portion of things. This week, power-polling counts twice and resume counts once, and then I adjust things that don't make sense to me.
1 Alabama
2 Ohio State
3 Oregon
4 Michigan
5 TCU
Alabama and Ohio State give no reason to drop them in their first games against BCS AQ teams. Yes, I have Oregon at No. 3. That's because they kind of looked like a team that allowed a midmajor to hang around for the first half until annihilating them afterward. They were playing Tennessee. Michigan is now No. 4 in part because they are the one of the only teams I'm aware of that has played and defeated two AQ teams. TCU is the midmajor to beat after Virginia Tech lost by a larger margin to James Madison than to Boise State, but moves down because of Oregon and Michigan.
6 Oklahoma
7 Florida
8 Arizona
9 Nebraska
10 Boise State
Okay, now I'm willing to admit that I might have been wrong about Oklahoma after they have one of the most impressive wins of the year. Florida wasn't that bad against a South Florida team that is still in an AQ conference. We can question whether that should be the case, but until further notice it is so. Arizona and Nebraska lose ground because of teams moving ahead of them. Boise State ... well, that's what happens when you have a three-game season.
11 Iowa
12 Wisconsin
13 Arkansas
14 South Carolina
15 LSU
Wisconsin and Arkansas, please play someone if you want to be ranked anywhere near the Top 10, mkay? I moved South Carolina down from where the Gamecocks were in the first draft, both because I'm not sold on them being a Top 10 team yet and we count as a South Carolina voter for purposes of the CK award. Given South Carolina's record of disappearing against FCS teams and with Furman this weekend, I'm not taking any chances. LSU is ... I don't even know what LSU is anymore, but they have defeated two AQ teams, so there we have it.
16 Utah
17 Stanford
18 Texas
19 Auburn
20 Oklahoma State
Utah and Stanford have looked decent, Texas hasn't defeated anyone of any consequence, Auburn didn't really impress me with the Mississippi State game and Oklahoma State is probably not going to be here for long.
21 Air Force
22 California
23 Nevada
24 Fresno State
25 Missouri
Several of these teams are here simply because (again) they've actually played someone. A few of them will almost certainly not be ranked at the end of the season -- there are several teams that are probably good but just haven't proven it yet -- and some of them will stay. So I wouldn't get too excited one way or the other about the presence of any of them.