CBSsports.com BlogPoll Week 7 Draft

This week, the sportswriters finally agreed with my ranking of Alabama at #1, finally knocking the Florida Tebows out of the top spot. But a weekend of upsets is causing quite a disruption on my ballot.

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

Dropped Out: Kansas (#16), Missouri (#20), Brigham Young (#22), South Florida (#23), Notre Dame (#24).

A few things stand out that probably require explanation.

• Virginia Tech didn't drop as much as most other voters would drop them. I'm still voting based on what I think the relative strength of each team. The Hokies beat Miami, who beat Georgia Tech, who beat VT. So who do you vote ahead of the others? VT's blowout of Miami was the most impressive of the three games, so they get the nod.
• Oklahoma jumps up 1 spot despite losing their third game of the season. Three losses by a total of FIVE points. If I think Miami is a top ten team, then Oklahoma isn't far behind them. And frankly, I still think the Sooners are better than 110 other teams in college football. I can't put anybody else ahead of the Sooners than are already in front of them.

• Iowa is this season's Penn State. An undefeated, overrated Big Ten team who voters feel the need to rank highly. Why? The Hawkeyes nearly lost to Northern Iowa and Arkansas State.
• Boise won...and dropped because they merely beat a Tulsa team that Oklahoma blew out handily. It was noted last week that Boise doesn't look like a top five team...so this is a necessary adjustment.
• Arkansas jumps 7 spots by going into the Swamp and taking the Gators down to the wire. Another example of a team deserving to be rewarded for playing a better team and just coming up short. It's better to lose by 3 points to Florida than to beat Arkansas State by 3 points.
• Texas Tech has been underrated lately. I forget they took Texas down to the wire, and their loss to Houston was close as well. The Red Raiders seemed to put everything together when Steven Sheffield took over at quarterback. They may be underranked at #17.
• I don't think Nebraska is as bad as they looked on Saturday...so I'm keeping them ranked for now.

Big 12 Powerpoll

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

This weekend, the top four teams in the South clearly established themselves on a level above the North...but the bottom two in the South sure took a step downwards. Baylor has an excuse with the loss of Robert Griffin...but A&M is now finding out that Mike Sherman is simply Bill Callahan 2.0.

I'm still trying to figure out how Kansas managed to lose to Colorado; that one was nearly as stunning as Nebraska's lack of offense on Saturday. Is the North becoming one big sucky pool of mediocrity?