BlogPoll, Week 15: BCS Rankings Reversed As Oklahoma State, Not Alabama, Is No. 2

The final BlogPoll of the 2011 college football regular season disagrees with the final BCS rankings: while Alabama is headed to New Orleans to play LSU for the BCS National Championship as the BCS' No. 2 team, the coterie of bloggers that comprises the 2011 BlogPoll crew has Oklahoma State second after unbeaten LSU, and slides Alabama down to third.

The top of the Week 15 BlogPoll doesn't have nearly as much carnage as everything below it. After blowout losses in conference championship games, Georgia, Virginia Tech, and Houston all plummet, while Oklahoma's lopsided loss to Oklahoma State earns the Sooners their own descent.

And with Heisman front-runner Robert Griffin III at the controls, Baylor rises to No. 14 in the BlogPoll, its first top-15 ranking of the season and possibly the first in the program's history.

Results for Week 15

#	School	Points/blog	SD	Delta
1	LSU Tigers (60)	25.00	0.00	--
2	Oklahoma St. Cowboys	23.50	0.70	1
3	Alabama Crimson Tide	23.15	1.14	-1
4	Stanford Cardinal	21.52	1.01	--
5	Oregon Ducks	20.55	1.18	3
6	Boise St. Broncos	18.40	3.31	1
7	Arkansas Razorbacks	17.92	2.96	2
8	Wisconsin Badgers	17.92	1.78	6
9	USC Trojans	15.07	7.38	4
10	South Carolina Gamecocks	14.30	3.80	5
11	Kansas St. Wildcats	14.27	2.72	5
12	Michigan Wolverines	13.03	2.68	5
13	Michigan St. Spartans	12.57	3.56	-2
14	Baylor Bears	11.13	2.85	5
15	Clemson Tigers	10.55	3.37	6
16	TCU Horned Frogs	10.13	3.64	2
17	Georgia Bulldogs	9.90	3.93	-5
18	Virginia Tech Hokies	9.42	3.70	-13
19	Oklahoma Sooners	8.58	4.06	-9
20	Houston Cougars	6.65	4.30	-14
21	Nebraska Cornhuskers	6.17	2.31	-1
22	Southern Miss. Golden Eagles	4.87	2.26	2
23	West Virginia Mountaineers	3.45	1.96	-1
24	Penn St. Nittany Lions	2.92	2.66	-1
25	Florida St. Seminoles	0.85	1.46	--
Others Receiving Votes: Cincinnati Bearcats | Arkansas St. Red Wolves | Northern Illinois Huskies | Notre Dame Fighting Irish | Texas Longhorns | Arizona St. Sun Devils | Missouri Tigers | Auburn Tigers | Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets | Louisville Cardinals | Virginia Cavaliers | Tulsa Golden Hurricane | BYU Cougars | Texas A&M Aggies | California Golden Bears | Western Kentucky Hilltoppers | Ohio Bobcats
Updated: Dec 7, 2011 9:17 AM EST

Total Ballots: 60

Explore votes by team | Explore poll ballots by voter

Wack Ballot Watchdog

Usually, I use this space to try to figure out who did what completely wrong. Today, I use it praise for ballots with teams outside the conventional wisdom: Linebacker U's vote for Ohio, One Foot Down's faith in Louisville, Bearcats Blog's respect for Western Kentucky, and The Ralphie Report's ranking of California.

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 No. 25 when looking for the lowest, otherwise teams that everyone agreed were terrible (say, Florida) would all be at the top.

I shouldn't have to tell you at this point that there's a lack of consensus on USC, thanks to the Troans' diminished visibility in the post-sanctions era. But I will say that it's surprising that USC still tops this category, and the standard deviations it records are only getting bigger.

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.

NittanyWhiteOut has Alabama seventh; Crimson and Cream Machine has Georgia seventh; Dan Shanoff's ballot has TCU fourth (!).

Card Chronicle's most aberrational move is ... well, I don't see one.

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.

Moving Notre Dame up will, indeed, help win this award for Subway Domer.

Dawg Sports dropped Georgia 12 spots, Braves & Birds just six; either way, sending the Bulldogs sliding after losing to the best team in the country in everyone's eyes was enough to carry the day in this category this week.

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.

And dropping Georgia was also a way to produce massive swing.

Falcon Blog adjusted two teams in its top nine, dropped no team more than seven spots, and kept the composition of its top 25 the same. That's great consistency.