I'll admit it -- I was too depressed after watching Cal embarrass themselves in Washington, so I didn't even bother to watch the Big XII Title Game.  I just couldn't make myself care.  Apparently I missed a 13-12 barnburner.  Woo.

This is our best guess at a Top 25.  If you disagree with our judgment, tell us why we're wrong and we'll consider making some correction.  Try getting that sort of commitment from the BCS, will ya?

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama
2	TCU
3	Cincinnati	2
4	Texas	1
5	Florida	1

Cincy barely survives at Pitt, but leaps over Texas anyway.  In my opinion, their résumés are very close.  Hard to differentiate.  However, I do know of one reliable way to determine which team is better.  It's called a playoff.  For my own part, I'm planning on skipping the BCS this January and paying attention to college basketball instead.  Except perhaps the Fiesta Bowl.  That one sounds fun.

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What we're facing here is the very real possibility that Division I-A football could finish its regular season with five undefeated teams.  Five.  To all those advocating for a 'plus-one' model, essentially a four-team playoff, well, I hope this season convinces you that any playoff consisting of fewer than eight teams is destined to fail.  Personally, anything that breaks the BCS is a good thing, and I'm hoping for more chaos in the future.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama	2
2	TCU	1
3	Texas	1
4	Florida
5	Cincinnati

Not much change at the top.  The move by Alabama to the top of our poll has nothing to do with last week's events (both Texas and 'Bama barely survived in rivalry games, while Florida beat down a clearly inferior Florida State and TCU proved nothing in blowing out New Mexico).  Instead, an Alabama fan last week convinced me, on the basis of strength of schedule, to move the Tide ahead of Texas, and just such a tiny change was enough to move Alabama above both Texas and TCU.

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I'm really going to have to explain myself this week.

Yeah, Texas Christian University at #1.  Really.  All four of the top teams were close (though all four of us had Alabama over Florida), but in the end, both Yellow Fever and I put TCU on top, and that was just enough.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	TCU	2
2	Texas	2
3	Alabama	2
4	Florida	2
5	Cincinnati

But, why TCU?  Well, ignoring the natural bias against TCU (face it, even if we hate Texas or Alabama, on the first glace, we're ALWAYS going to regard an undefeated Crimson Tide over an undefeated Horned Frogs team; it's a perfectly natural conditioned reaction, and we should all accept it so we can move forward), if we actually consider what each team has accomplished this year, they're all pretty comparable.

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More photos » by Wily Low - AP

Jeremiah Masoli managed to avoid the same crushing fate as two years ago, leading the Ducks past a rowdy Arizona crowd in late November towards a date with the Rose Bowl. One last hurdle remains, however: Oregon State.

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The Pac-10's Rose Bowl race, so utterly complicated a couple weeks ago, and with four legitimate contenders still alive going into Saturday, is now dead simple:

Oregon State @ Oregon.  The 113th Civil War.  Thursday, December 3rd, 6PM.  Winner goes to the Rose Bowl.  Loser gets, well, it's hard to say what the loser will get.  It won't be Roses, however, and that's all that matters.

The rest of the Pac-10?  Well, it's a big mess.  We could be looking at a four-way tie for second place in the conference, throwing bowl placements entirely at the whims of the various bowl committees.  Stanford is finished with its conference schedule at 6-3.  If Oregon State loses the Civil War, they'll also finish at 6-3.  Cal, USC and Arizona all also have three conferences losses.  Cal needs a win at Washington to get to 6-3.  USC and Arizona are both sitting at 4-3, and first need a win in their respective rivalry games this weekend before they face off on December 5th.  Finally, UCLA, at 6-5 but just 3-5 in the conference, is well behind everyone else and still faces long odds to actually garner a bowl bid of any kind.

Let's run some scenarios, shall we?

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Lots of movement in this week's ballot, especially outside the Top 10.  I fully admit that I submitted another controversial ballot, and Yellow Fever had an intriguing vote as well.  I don't know if we'll win the BlogPoll's "Mr. Manic Depressive" award, but it would surprise me if we weren't at least in the running.

Here's my 'controversial' position of the week:  the Pac-10 is the deepest conference in the nation.  They may not have the best team in the country, and they certainly won't be putting anyone in the mythical National Championship Game, but name me one other conference that goes six-deep with such quality teams.  Even the 12-team super-conferences don't go that far.  Heck, the Big XII is Texas, maybe Oklahoma State (maybe), and basically nothing else.  The SEC has Florida and Alabama, but beyond LSU (whose major accomplishment at this point in the season is close losses to Florida and Alabama), there isn't a whole lot of depth.  And the ACC?  Georgia Tech has kept it going this year, but Virginia Tech and Miami have both stumbled repeatedly, and the Atlantic Division (yes, I had to look that up, the ACC's divisions are WAY too arbitrary) is about to be won by a Clemson team that earlier this year lost to Maryland (whose only other win was an overtime victory over I-AA James Madison).

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama
2	Florida
3	TCU	2
4	Texas	1
5	Cincinnati	1

TCU jumps a couple spots after thoroughly spanking Utah and proving that they are the class of a pretty good Mountain West.  Of course, much of that jump is due to Yellow Fever's sudden decision to vote the Horned Frogs #1.  Personally, I don't think it's a terrible vote, but I don't think I could write a convincing justification for it myself.  Your thoughts?

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On Monday night, our Cal Men's Basketball team got a stiffer-than-expected test from Murray State in the opening game of the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic.  They managed to survive, 75-70, but perhaps the adversity will do them some good.  Tonight, however, it doesn't appear that the Detroit Titans are going to provide quite as big a challenge.

Last season, Detroit finished with just a 7-23 record.  They won just two games in the Horizon league, and they never won back-to-back games.  Their best win (and the only one over an opponent ranked by Ken Pomeroy in the Top 200 last year) was a 5-point home victory over St. Louis.  Versus major-conference competition, both Purdue and Illinois defeated the Titans by more than 30, and even a pretty bad DePaul team (one that Cal beat by 10) managed to defeat Detroit 71-62.  The best that could be said about them is that they twice came within 5 points of an NCAA-caliber Butler team.

To be fair, the Titans shouldn't be quite as bad this season.  They do return their top four scorers from a year ago, three of them now seniors, and add a couple of talented transfers, including what may be the Bears' first real test against a big man inside.

Your game information is as follows:

California Golden Bears (1-0) vs. Detroit Titans (0-0)
Wednesday, Nov. 11, 8:00 p.m., Haas Pavilion, Berkeley, Calif.
Radio: KFRC 1550 AM TV: ESPNU

After the jump, we'll take a closer look at the Detroit roster:

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Are you bored by the 2009 Mythical National Championship Race?  I'm certainly bored by it.  'Bama/Florida vs. Texas seems almost a certainty at this point, as no reasonable challenger has emerged in the weakest Big XII in recent memory, and the only reasonable challenger in the SEC (LSU) has been vanquished by both Florida and Alabama.  *Yawn* Get me an 8-team playoff, stat!

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama	1
2	Florida	1
3	Texas
4	Cincinnati	1
5	TCU	3

Welcome to the Top 5, TCU!  You still have to get by the Utes this weekend, but at this point, your BCS credentials look pretty solid (undefeated with road wins at BYU, Clemson and Virginia).  Not great, but solid, and in this mediocre season, solid will get you everywhere.

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Cal's Men's Basketball team opens its season tonight at home vs. the Murray State Racers.  Now, since "Murray" is not one of the Fifty United States, it would be pretty easy to overlook them, especially given that Cal has been consistently ranked in the Top 20 of preseason basketball polls, and is looking forward to a pair of tough games in Madison Square Garden next week for the Coaches v. Cancer Classic.  This, I believe, would be a mistake.

Murray State (located in Murray, Kentucky) has long been a power in the Ohio Valley Conference, winning the league a record 20 times, though they haven't won it since 2006, finishing second each of the last three years.  They're also picked to win the league again this year, the 13th time in the last 21 years they've been tabbed as the preseason favorite.  Looking at their roster, it's not hard to see why.

The Racers return four starters, including their top three scorers, from a team that went 19-12 last year.  Ken Pomeroy rated them the 137th best team in the country last year, ahead of teams like Rutgers and Oregon.  Pomeroy also notes that last year's team's strengths included offensive rebounding and defending the three-point shot.  Our only common opponent from last year was Missouri, whom they lost to by 11, instead of the 27 Cal fell by (both games in Columbus, MO).

Your game information is as follows:

California Golden Bears (0-0) vs. Murray State Racers (0-0)
Monday, Nov. 9, 8:00 p.m., Haas Pavilion, Berkeley, Calif.
Radio: KFRC 1550 AM TV: ESPNU

After the jump, we'll take a look around Murray State's roster.

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It's a good thing I have two rational, reasonable cohorts to help compile this Top 25 every week; this week, their votes helped to temper my own outrageously reactionary vote:  Oregon at #1.

Yes, our final ballot has Oregon at a much more reasonable #4, below three undefeated powerhouses (Florida, Alabama, Texas), but my uninhibited exuberance is the reason they're so high in the first place.  Perhaps I'll rethink my vote next week, but for now, Oregon's dismantling of one of the greatest college football dynasties of our time has me completely rethinking what it means to be #1.

But wait, didn't Boise State beat Oregon already this season?  And not in a flukey manner, either.  Shouldn't they be above the Ducks?  I disagree.  Boise beat an Oregon team, but not this Oregon team.  Oregon is a much, much better team over the last six weeks compared to the first three, after Jeremiah Masoli learned to throw the football and the running game opened up.  I'd favor this Oregon team over Boise by at least a touchdown, maybe a good bit more.  Frankly, Boise State's overall body of work (which includes not just who they've beaten but how they beat them) is just not as impressive as Oregon's run through a much tougher schedule.

And how can I rank Oregon above the other undefeateds?  In particular, Florida and Alabama have played SEC schedules, and Texas has bullied its way through the Big XII.  So?  The Gators at least have a win at LSU (currently ranked No. 9 in the BCS standings), a 13-3 defensive struggle that only a defensive coordinator could love.  Alabama's best win is over No. 23 Virginia Tech, and Texas' best wins are over Oklahoma State and a surprisingly beatable Oklahoma.  Good records, worthy of the Top 5, but none of those teams has a win as good as Oregon's.  Can you discount the loss to Boise?  No.  But I've been waiting all year for one team to really impress me, to really show that it was the #1 team in the land, and while Texas' dismantling of Oklahoma State might impress those who thought the Cowboys were really good in the first place, I submit that no performance this year has been impressive as the Ducks' win over USC.  And it's not a fluke -- Oregon has looked this good for six weeks now.  Had the Ducks scheduled Charleston Southern, like Florida did, or Wyoming, like Texas did, or Florida International, like Alabama did, instead of Boise State, would you then try and argue that the Ducks didn't deserve to be #1?

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