Auburn takes home the fake blog national title but we've got more mavericks per capita than anywhere else because we're from the wild and wooly internet. Such is the end of the year.
Jan 14, 2011 - After TCU beat Wisconsin the question was always going to be "how many protest votes do the Horned Frogs get?" and your answer is… six. Not bad. With Auburn an obvious #1 that makes TCU #2. Oregon barely falls after losing on a last-gasp drive and the rest of the poll falls into place about as you expect.
Your most humiliated conference is officially the Big East, which landed zero teams in the final poll, behind the Mountain West, Conference USA, and the WAC. As a reward for those conferences all of their good teams will be carved up and placed in BCS conferences save lonely Nevada and Boise State.
The full results:
Total Ballots: 48
Justify Your Existence
Um… there isn't any this week. Aside from having NC State a couple slots higher the only differences between this poll and the Coaches are more protest TCU votes and a swap of Utah and NC State.
Wack Ballot Watchdog
Now on to the extracurriculars. First up are the teams which spur the most and least disagreement between voters as measured by standard deviation. Note that the standard deviation charts halt at #25 when looking for the lowest, otherwise teams that everyone agreed were terrible (say, Eastern Michigan) would all be at the top.
Most Disagreement
| # | School | Points/blog | SD |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Boise St. Broncos | 17.56 | 3.37 |
| 2 | Michigan St. Spartans | 10.54 | 3.34 |
| 3 | South Carolina Gamecocks | 3.35 | 3.15 |
| 4 | Texas A&M Aggies | 6.06 | 3.09 |
| 5 | Nevada Wolf Pack | 14.31 | 3.05 |
As per usual the mid-major du jour is king of this category.
Ballot Math
First up are "Mr. Bold" and "Mr. Numb Existence." The former goes to the voter with the ballot most divergent from the poll at large. The number you see is the average difference between a person's opinion of a team and the poll's opinion.
Mr. Bold
| # | Blog | Team | Ballot | Avg Error |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rise Northwestern | Northwestern Wildcats | ballot | 2.51 |
| 2 | Clone Chronicles | Iowa St. Cyclones | ballot | 2.42 |
| 3 | Dawg Sports | Georgia Bulldogs | ballot | 2.16 |
| 4 | NittanyWhiteOut | Penn St. Nittany Lions | ballot | 2.09 |
| 5 | Hammer & Rails | Purdue Boilermakers | ballot | 2.08 |
Your most bizarre ballot belongs to Rise Northwestern, which went SEC nuts after the bowls. LSU(!?!) shoots up to #4 after the Cotton Bowl, ahead of even Stanford and Ohio State. Alabama shoots up to eighth as well, but that only gets them into a more reasonable time zone. It's the back end where things get truly odd: three Big East teams including #20 UConn and #21 Pitt. Wisconsin falls to #11, as well, which is harsh.
Mr. Numb Existence
| # | Blog | Team | Ballot | Avg Error |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SOX & Dawgs | Connecticut Huskies | ballot | 0.70 |
| 2 | BCS Know How | USC Trojans | ballot | 0.91 |
| 3 | Team Speed Kills | South Carolina Gamecocks | ballot | 0.95 |
| 4 | Streaking the Lawn | Virginia Cavaliers | ballot | 1.02 |
| 5 | Corn Nation | Nebraska Cornhuskers | ballot | 1.16 |
Sox & Dawgs turns in a truly epic ballot that has a season-low in error, as per usual when it comes to the year end, but only gets to #6 before our perfect ballot quest ends without a 2010 winner. Boise slides up above their #8 placement in the poll at large.
Next we have the Coulter/Kos Award and the Straight Bangin' Award, which are again different sides of the same coin. The CKA and SBA go to the blogs with the highest and lowest bias rating, respectively. Bias rating is calculated by subtracting the blogger's vote for his own team from the poll-wide average. A high number indicates you are shameless homer. A low number indicates that you suffer from an abusive relationship with your football team.
The CK Award
| # | Blog | Team | Ballot | Bias |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Subway Domer | Notre Dame Fighting Irish | ballot | 4.19 |
| 2 | Block U | Utah Utes | ballot | 3.13 |
| 3 | Crimson and Cream Machine | Oklahoma Sooners | ballot | 2.33 |
| 4 | Team Speed Kills | South Carolina Gamecocks | ballot | 1.65 |
| 5 | Mountain West Connection | Utah Utes | ballot | 0.13 |
Notre Dame doesn't feature in the poll at all but Subway Domer ranks them 21st after they put it on coachless Miami in their bowl game. This manages to beat out Block U's unwavering support of Utah.
That unwavering support saw the Utes finish atop this list for seemingly the 100th time this year just before the bowls, and the CK Award rose up for the third time this year as Boise State clubbed them 26-3. They were 17 point favorites, so that's a win for the award and a final season record of 8-5, most of them Utah games. Let this be a lesson to you, and here's to Utah going 6-6 next year so we don't have to do this all over again.
The Straight Bangin' Award
| # | Blog | Team | Ballot | Bias |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Corn Nation | Nebraska Cornhuskers | ballot | -1.58 |
| 2 | SOX & Dawgs | Connecticut Huskies | ballot | -0.25 |
| 3 | BCS Know How | USC Trojans | ballot | -0.10 |
| 4 | Conquest Chronicles | USC Trojans | ballot | -0.10 |
| 5 | NittanyWhiteOut | Penn St. Nittany Lions | ballot | -0.04 |
The usual formula here is disappointing loss equals win for blog following team and that holds here as the Cornhuskers lost 19-7 to a team they'd turned into a fine paste earlier in the season.
Swing is the total change in each ballot from last week to this week (obviously voters who didn't submit a ballot last week are not included). A high number means you are easily distracted by shiny things. A low number means that you're damn sure you're right no matter what reality says.
Mr. Manic Depressive
| # | Blog | Team | Ballot | Swing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Crimson and Cream Machine | Oklahoma Sooners | ballot | 126 |
| 2 | The Crimson Quarry | Indiana Hoosiers | ballot | 116 |
| 3 | OverThePylon | Ball St. Cardinals | ballot | 112 |
| 4 | Block U | Utah Utes | ballot | 110 |
| 5 | Corn Nation | Nebraska Cornhuskers | ballot | 106 |
Crimson and Cream Machine is your victor here thanks in (very) small part to having Auburn third before the national title game. Nothing on his ballot leaps out as irrational, but he moves almost everyone multiple spots and chucked Big 12 losers way down the list—Nebraska, A&M, and Mizzou average an eight slot drop.
Mr. Xanax
| # | Blog | Team | Ballot | Swing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | BCS Know How | USC Trojans | ballot | 72 |
| 2 | Fight For Iowa | Iowa Hawkeyes | ballot | 74 |
| 3 | BC Interruption | Boston College Eagles | ballot | 82 |
| 4 | Falcon Blog | Bowling Green Falcons | ballot | 82 |
| 5 | Card Chronicle | Louisville Cardinals | ballot | 84 |
By contrast, BCS Know How's ballot is filled with gentle soothing moves like "Michigan State down 3 after getting disemboweled" and "ditto Utah except only two spots."
4 comments
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Comments
Oregon played a complete joke of a schedule, as did TCU. Why would I reward them?
This team will improve in '10... on its 16-16 conference record over the last 4 years.... after losing 20 games in the last 4 years... after having the 7th worst major-conference defense... after not even winning its own division in the ACC in the last 4.
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by Bud Elliott on Jan 14, 2011 1:50 PM EST reply actions
They did something that 118 teams could not do.
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by Jeremy Mauss on Jan 14, 2011 7:26 PM EST up reply actions
From the Rumble Seat ought to just be DQ'd entirely
That sham of a ballot is wholly divorced from reality. At best you wonder whether they actually watched the games, at worst, you wonder if they’ve got some baffling axe to grind.
Alabama drops one and MSU drops 1?
Oklahoma drops one UConn remains unchanged
Mizzou remains unchanged.
So.Car remains unchanged but FSU drops 1?
LSU remains unchanged, but A&M rises 2 spots?
Nevada drops 1?
Boise remains unchanged, but Utah rises 5 spots?
Mississippi State drops a spot?
West Virginia raises two spots?
"Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is." -Sir Francis Bacon
by Stuck in the Plains on Jan 14, 2011 6:53 PM EST reply actions
Lighten up Francis
We only cared about who got #1 and just stuck the rest back in. We’ve done a pretty good job of voting all year unlike 90% of the other voters.
I write stuff From the Rumble Seat.
by BirdGT on Jan 14, 2011 8:05 PM EST up reply actions
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