CBSsports.com BlogPoll Week 1 Final Ballot

Here's my final ballot for the CBSsports.com BlogPoll. I decided that Missouri's performance warranted a jump over Penn State as well, and Miami deserved a jump over both of those programs. Cincinnati certainly took Rutgers behind their own woodshed on Monday night, so they enter the poll as well. Ohio State and Georgia Tech both get penalized for looking extremely ordinary in games that ranked teams should win handily. If those are one game aberrations, they'll rebound nicely.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Southern Cal	3
2	Florida	1
3	Texas	1
4	Alabama	3
5	Boise State	3
6	Brigham Young	7
7	California	1
8	Oklahoma State	2
9	Oklahoma	6
10	LSU	5
11	Mississippi	5
12	Virginia Tech	3
13	TCU	1
14	Miami (Florida)	10
15	Georgia	3
16	Missouri
17	Penn State	2
18	Florida State	3
19	Nebraska	3
20	Kansas	1
21	Notre Dame
22	Ohio State	11
23	Utah	5
24	Baylor
25	Cincinnati
Last week's ballot

Dropped Out: Oregon (#17), Georgia Tech (#20), Oregon State (#23), Texas Tech (#25).

Some might question why I'd promote Florida State after losing, but that goes to one of my base assumptions in ranking teams. Competing neck-and-neck with teams of equal or better strength and losing should count more than playing lesser competition, especially when you play down to lesser competition. Florida State's rise is more due to watching teams ahead of them tumble than rewarding the 'Noles for a loss. I can't rate Nebraska's victory as somehow being superior to Florida State's loss at this time, so that's where that stands. These ratings are a fluid situation, and once Nebraska starts playing BCS level competition, then we'll readdress those ratings.