2012 BlogPoll, Week 6: Alabama holds No. 1, Oregon State makes biggest jump

Alabama did not lose in Week 5 action, and so the Crimson Tide stayed comfortable in their perch at the peak of the BlogPoll Top 25 for Week 6. Nick Saban's bunch earned 76 of 85 first-place votes, and notched 24.81 points per ballot, matching their per-ballot average from last week's poll.

The rest of the top seven remained unchanged: Oregon, Florida State, LSU, Georgia, Kansas State, and South Carolina followed 'Bama in that order for the second straight week. But with a loss by former No. 8 Stanford, which fell 10 spots to No. 18, the next rung on the ladder was open for grabs, and West Virginia moved up to No. 8 in this week's poll after dropping 70 points on Baylor.

Notre Dame, static after a bye week, remained No. 9. Texas used a win over Oklahoma State to move into the top 10 for the first time in 2012, hopping from No. 12 to No. 10 and vaulting over idle Florida.

The biggest jump in this week's rankings belongs to Oregon State, which rose six spots after its third victory of the year over a BCS auto-bid conference foe. The Beavers added a takedown of Arizona on the road to previous wins over Wisconsin and the BlogPoll No. 24 team, UCLA, moved up to No. 13, and received one first-place vote.

Results after Week 5

#	School	Points/blog	SD	Delta
1	Alabama Crimson Tide (76)	24.81	0.68	--
2	Oregon Ducks (3)	23.24	1.84	--
3	Florida St. Seminoles (1)	22.01	2.82	--
4	LSU Tigers	20.62	2.84	--
5	Georgia Bulldogs (1)	20.55	2.22	--
6	Kansas St. Wildcats (2)	19.21	2.68	--
7	South Carolina Gamecocks	18.79	2.14	--
8	West Virginia Mountaineers	17.79	3.23	2
9	Notre Dame Fighting Irish (1)	16.79	3.00	--
10	Texas Longhorns	15.71	2.79	2
11	Florida Gators	15.55	3.28	--
12	Ohio St. Buckeyes	12.75	4.12	2
13	Oregon St. Beavers (1)	10.72	4.68	6
14	USC Trojans	9.99	5.30	-1
15	TCU Horned Frogs	9.89	4.45	--
16	Clemson Tigers	9.68	4.62	--
17	Oklahoma Sooners	8.13	4.77	--
18	Stanford Cardinal	7.55	4.29	-10
19	Louisville Cardinals	7.46	3.56	-1
20	Northwestern Wildcats	5.07	4.25	2
21	Mississippi St. Bulldogs	4.74	3.76	--
22	Nebraska Cornhuskers	4.24	3.11	2
23	Rutgers Scarlet Knights	3.01	2.93	--
24	UCLA Bruins	2.60	3.63	4
25	Ohio Bobcats	2.11	3.47	--
Others Receiving Votes: Cincinnati Bearcats | Texas Tech Red Raiders | Washington Huskies | Louisiana Tech Bulldogs | Texas A&M Aggies | Michigan Wolverines | Boise St. Broncos | Baylor Bears | Arizona St. Sun Devils | Michigan St. Spartans | Miami Hurricanes | Oklahoma St. Cowboys | Iowa St. Cyclones | Virginia Tech Hokies | Western Kentucky Hilltoppers | Tennessee Volunteers | Middle Tenn. St. Blue Raiders | Utah State Aggies | Purdue Boilermakers | Troy Trojans | Washington St. Cougars | Ball St. Cardinals | Texas-San Antonio Roadrunners | Tulsa Golden Hurricane | Nevada Wolf Pack | Duke Blue Devils
Updated: Oct 2, 2012 9:01 AM EDT

Total Ballots: 85
Votes by team | Ballots by voter

Wack Ballot Watchdog

Once again, the full list of the non-Alabama first-place votes:

• Oregon: Washington State blog CougCenter; Mountain West blog Mountain West Connection; Wyoming blog Cowboy Altitude
• Florida State: Florida blog Alligator Army
• Georgia: Boise State blog One Bronco Nation Under God
• Kansas State: Auburn blog College and Magnolia; LSU blog And The Valley Shook!
• Notre Dame: Iowa blog Black Heart Gold Pants
• Oregon State: Oklahoma/general blog Blatant Homerism

I think the Georgia first-place vote is the only one I really have an issue with: the Bulldogs almost coughed up a home game to a Tennessee team that plays defense with its eyes closed. The only first-place votes for non-Alabama teams that were repeated this week were CougCenter's and Mountain West Connection's for Oregon and Alligator Army's for Florida State. Black Heart Gold Pants moved on from Stanford to Notre Dame, while Blatant Homerism jumped from Notre Dame to Oregon State.

I would write about The 7th Floor's insane ballot here, but I'll get two chances to do that below!

Now on to the extracurriculars. First up are the teams which spur the most disagreement between voters as measured by standard deviation. Note that the standard deviation charts halt at No. 25 when looking for the lowest, otherwise teams that everyone agreed were terrible (say, Kansas) would all be at the top.

Prominent one-loss teams that are also "untested" seem to cause more disagreement than prominent undefeated teams. Also, this rating provides a great illustration of the soft middle of this year's top 25 teams: those five teams, in a different order, are No. 13 to No. 17 in this week's BlogPoll.

Ballot Math

First up are The Chip Kelly Award For Boldness and Jim Tressell's 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.

Résumé balloting doesn't look quite as nuts this week as it often does, but having Texas Tech No. 9 is certainly bold (CougCenter, it should be noted, has the Red Raiders No. 10) and having Cincinnati ahead of Ohio State, West Virginia, and LSU is similarly gutsy. The 7th Floor is here on the strength of ranking its Miami team ... and ranking it ahead of both Notre Dame and Florida.

As usual, Eleven Warriors wins and four Big Ten teams are in the top five. It's just precious.

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.

BCS Guru's unshakable faith in USC (voted No. 9 on that ballot this week) upsets The 7th Floor's inexplicable faith in Miami, but at least BCS Guru has Stanford No. 8 after its horrific loss to Washington, which shows a consistency in overrating Pac-12 teams. The 7th Floor just has Miami, the nation's No. 116 defense, holding down No. 21 in its poll. (Other bizarre ranked teams in that ballot: Tennessee, Washington, Washington State.)

One Foot Down has Notre Dame No. 10, holding there after a bye, and the bias in their rating is all from other fans changing their assessments. That 0.00 is suspicious, though, and it's possible we're going to need to tinker with the calculations to make sure that this category's being correctly calculated: could there be just four bloggers "underrating" their own teams?

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.

Irony is winning one category for not changing an opinion and winning the next for most aggregate change in opinion. One Foot Down also dethrones BHGP, which is unlikely to top Swing again for the rest of the year as its balloting gets more and more data to work from.

Our Wisconsin blog dropped Stanford five spots, moved five teams up one spot to make room for the Cardinal, and flip-flopped TCU and Ohio State. I don't recall seeing a Swing number this small, ever, so kudos to B5Q for that much.

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