CBSsports.com BlogPoll Week 3 Draft

Quite a shakeup this week, as several teams lost or didn't play up to expectations, starting with former #1 Southern Cal. So who's the new #1? I expected Texas and Florida to mop the field this weekend with home games where they should have been motivated to demolish the other team. Didn't happen. So I'm going with Alabama for now, mostly on the strength of their victory over Virginia Tech. But how good is Virginia Tech? A good question; they were outplayed by Nebraska most of the game yesterday.

And that's an issue with early season resume setting; everybody has an incomplete resume at this point, so you have to go with a lot of "gut feel" at this point. So here's my "gut feel" at this point:

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

Dropped Out: Brigham Young (#6), Utah (#21), Baylor (#22).

The obvious criticism that someone could make is leaving Nebraska unchanged. My perspective is that they lost by one point on the road against a higher ranked team, and by all accounts outplayed that team. Last week, I bumped Ohio State up 9 spots after nearly upsetting USC last weekend using similar logic. A narrow loss against a better opponent isn't necessarily grounds for dropping in the polls.

Big movers are LSU and Cincinnati. LSU's opening victory on the road at Washington looks stronger now that USC lost there. Cincinnati has two road victories against BCS conference foes, so they get credit there. I'm not feeling the same love for Miami at this point. Georgia Tech didn't overwhelm FCS/1-AA Jacksonville State in their season opener, and narrowly beat Clemson. Good win, yes. But I'm just not buying Miami yet.

I'm also not buying Penn State at this point; beating Akron, Syracuse, and Temple by three touchdowns doesn't impress me. In fact, the more I think about it, I think #15 is too high...but they'll probably pull my ballot if I drop them. (The more I think about it, Penn State belongs after Missouri...)

Houston was an omission from last week, and Florida State grudgingly gets back in after blasting BYU on the road. The 'Noles had to come from behind in the last minute to defeat Jacksonville State last week, so I'm still not sold. But give them credit for traveling to Utah.

Big XII PowerPoll

1. Texas
2. Oklahoma
3. Nebraska
4. Kansas
5. Missouri
6. Oklahoma State
7. Texas Tech
8. Texas A&M
9. Baylor
10. Iowa State
11. Kansas State
12. Colorado

Again, I'm not dropping Nebraska for losing by 1 point in the last minute on the road against a top-ten foe. Missouri and Kansas haven't played anybody near the calibre of Virginia Tech yet, so they remain behind the Huskers. Oklahoma State's season opening victory over Georgia is beginning to look like an exception; they drop to 6th. Tech kept it competitive in Austin; I'll move them to 7th. The final three teams all performed better this weekend, but it's still tough to distinguish between them. So I'm keeping them as-is for now.

Your feedback? This is my draft, and won't be final until Wednesday morning, so convince me of where I'm off, and I'll make the changes.