Final Blogpoll ballot.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Florida	1
2	Texas	1
3	Southern Cal	3
4	Utah	4
5	Oklahoma	2
6	Alabama	2
7	Penn State	--
8	TCU	8
9	Ohio State	--
10	Oregon	4
11	Texas Tech	6
12	Boise State	2
13	Georgia	2
14	Mississippi	8
15	Virginia Tech	10
16	Oklahoma State	5
17	Oregon State	9
18	Iowa	8
19	Missouri	1
20	Florida State	4
21	Cincinnati	8
22	West Virginia	4
23	Michigan State	6
24	Georgia Tech	12
25	LSU	1

Dropped Out: Boston College (#19), Pittsburgh (#20), Northwestern (#21), Brigham Young (#23).

I'm all over the map on the lower end of the poll, which means I'm probably overvaluing bowl games. Oh well, does anyone care about anything but the top five at this point? If Oklahoma had won last night, I probably would have ranked Texas #1. As it stands, Florida's SEC championship game win over Alabama and last night's win, comparable to Texas's best win, gives the Gators the best resume.

I respect what Utah did, and if they had scheduled (and beat) the Michigan program they thought they were scheduling, I might have given them a look. But they played only three teams from the Sagarin top 30, and two of those were non-BCS conference programs. I have a hard time imagining that Utah could have navigated the gauntlet Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Missouri, and Texas Tech with the 3-1 record that Texas managed, let alone 4-0. Ditto the SEC schedule of Florida. Every team ranked ahead of Utah has a top 16 schedule per Sagarin. Utah is #56. Sorry, guys. Maybe you and BYU can talk the Pac-10 into becoming the Pac-12. Until then, it will take a special confluence of circumstances for a non-BCS program to become a national champion (of course, I'm so averse to the idea of a 2-loss champion that I probably would have voted Utah over LSU last year, assuming the Utes wouldn't have played in the championship game under that scenario).

Blogpoll draft ballot, final regular season.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Texas	1
2	Florida	2
3	Oklahoma	--
4	Alabama	3
5	Texas Tech	1
6	Southern Cal	1
7	Penn State	--
8	Utah	3
9	Ohio State	1
10	Boise State	2
11	Oklahoma State	2
12	Georgia Tech	11
13	Cincinnati	5
14	Oregon	5
15	Georgia	2
16	TCU	2
17	Michigan State	3
18	Missouri	10
19	Boston College	2
20	Pittsburgh	4
21	Northwestern	1
22	Mississippi	3
23	Brigham Young	3
24	Florida State	3
25	Virginia Tech	1

Dropped Out: Ball State (#15), Oregon State (#16).

Here it is. I don't think the software is right. None of the up and down numbers make sense, as you will note if you scroll down and review last week's ballot. So, ignore the up and down numbers. As for my top four, I have Texas-Florida-Oklahoma-Alabama. My Big XII rationale is the same as last week. I don't think Oklahoma should have been in the title game over Texas, so I'm not going to give excessive credit for whipping a team that Texas whipped once and probably would have again. As I said last week, I'm a big believer in using head-to-head results among fairly comparable teams, and I'm also generally opposed to conference rematches in bowl games unless there is a really compelling reason. So, why Texas over Florida for #1? It could have gone either way. Each team's signature win was nearly identical to the other's: Texas beat OU by 10 on a neutral field, Florida beat Alabama by 11 on a neutral field. Texas Tech's loss, in the final seconds on the road against one-loss Texas Tech, was more excusable than Florida's loss at home to Ole Miss.

Blogpoll ballot, week 14.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama	--
2	Texas	--
3	Oklahoma	--
4	Florida	--
5	Texas Tech	1
6	Southern Cal	1
7	Penn State	--
8	Utah	3
9	Ohio State	1
10	Boise State	2
11	Oklahoma State	2
12	Georgia Tech	11
13	Boston College	4
14	Cincinnati	4
15	Ball State	--
16	Oregon	3
17	Georgia	4
18	TCU	4
19	Missouri	11
20	Michigan State	--
21	Pittsburgh	3
22	Northwestern	--
23	Mississippi	2
24	Brigham Young	2
25	Florida State	4

Dropped Out: Oregon State (#16).

Obviously, the key issue with this week's ballot concerns the one-loss teams, particularly Texas and Oklahoma. My placement is unchanged from last week and has as much to do with the nature of the Big XII triumvirate's losses more than anything else; in other words, I have ranked the three Big XII teams based on which is the closest to being undefeated. Texas lost at Texas Tech in the final seconds of the game; Oklahoma lost to Texas in a competitive but not down-to-the-wire game on a neutral field; Texas Tech lost badly at Oklahoma. Obviously, a review of the teams' nonconference schedule strength relegates TT a distant third among the group. Oklahoma, thanks to surprisingly good seasons by Cincinnati and TCU, had a tougher non-con than Texas, but not sufficiently tougher to override a 10 point win on a neutral field. I'm not entirely sure whether I should have TT behind Florida, but Florida's placement this week is academic: an SEC title game win over #1 Alabama would place the Gators in the top two, while a loss would take the Gators out of the top 5.

The more interesting question is what I would have done if Oklahoma had lost in Stillwater last night. Clearly, when head-to-head is taken out of the equation, I believe Texas has a resume superior to TT. Still, I'm a strong believer in the significance of head-to-head competition, sanctity of the regular season, etc., so I would have had to rank TT ahead of Texas (in that alternate universe, it would have been Alabama-TT-Texas-Florida). Texas would beat TT 7 times out of ten, but what happened happened. Of course, I may face this conundrum next week if OU edges ahead of UT in the BCS rankings and then loses to Missouri. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.