College Football Rankings: Week 2 BlogPoll Rewards LSU With No. 1, Fawns Over Baylor

The Week 2 BlogPoll is already seeing the sort of seismic shifts expected when voters weight on-field performances more than pedigree and inertia. The LSU Tigers take the top spot, dethroning Week 1 BlogPoll king Oklahoma after beating Oregon in their season opener, and Baylor vaults into the poll, setting a record after an offensive show.

Results for Week 2

#	School	Points/blog	SD	Delta
1	LSU Tigers (41)	23.63	2.42	5
2	Oklahoma Sooners (27)	23.14	1.57	--
3	Alabama Crimson Tide (21)	22.68	3.12	-2
4	Boise St. Broncos (4)	22.16	1.86	--
5	Stanford Cardinal (2)	19.47	3.32	2
6	Florida St. Seminoles	18.80	2.92	-1
7	Wisconsin Badgers	18.41	3.13	1
8	Texas A&M Aggies	16.11	3.70	2
9	Nebraska Cornhuskers	15.39	4.54	--
10	Virginia Tech Hokies	14.65	4.33	1
11	Oklahoma St. Cowboys	13.82	4.99	2
12	South Carolina Gamecocks	12.77	4.21	--
13	Arkansas Razorbacks	12.27	4.76	1
14	Oregon Ducks	12.26	6.03	-11
15	Ohio St. Buckeyes	9.86	4.27	4
16	Mississippi St. Bulldogs	9.37	4.21	4
17	Michigan St. Spartans	6.72	4.78	-1
18	Baylor Bears	6.45	6.48	53
19	Florida Gators	6.26	4.22	4
20	West Virginia Mountaineers	6.12	3.67	1
21	South Florida Bulls	5.26	5.93	15
22	Missouri Tigers	4.03	3.97	--
23	Penn St. Nittany Lions	2.60	3.77	4
24	Houston Cougars	2.21	3.95	7
25	Texas Longhorns	2.13	3.12	1
Others Receiving Votes: Arizona St. Sun Devils | BYU Cougars | TCU Horned Frogs | Northwestern Wildcats | USC Trojans | Georgia Bulldogs | Michigan Wolverines | Auburn Tigers | Maryland Terrapins | Iowa Hawkeyes | Clemson Tigers | Hawaii Warriors | Syracuse Orange | Central Florida Knights | Utah Utes | Pittsburgh Panthers | Northern Illinois Huskies | California Golden Bears | Cincinnati Bearcats | Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets | Notre Dame Fighting Irish | Utah State Aggies | Rutgers Scarlet Knights | North Carolina Tar Heels | Arizona Wildcats | Ohio Bobcats | Air Force Falcons | Washington St. Cougars | Texas Tech Red Raiders | Virginia Cavaliers | Southern Miss. Golden Eagles | Miami Hurricanes | Arkansas St. Red Wolves | Oregon St. Beavers | Toledo Rockets | Temple Owls | Nevada Wolf Pack | Tennessee Volunteers | Connecticut Huskies | Purdue Boilermakers | N.C. State Wolfpack | Fla. International Golden Panthers | UAB Blazers | Vanderbilt Commodores | SMU Mustangs | Eastern Michigan Eagles
Updated: Sep 7, 2011 9:08 AM EDT

Total Ballots: 94

Explore votes by team | Explore poll ballots by voter

LSU tops a strong top four — LSU, Oklahoma, Alabama, and Boise State — that is well removed from the rest of the field. And the consensus seems to be that there are 14 very good college football teams in America right now: Oregon brings up the rear of that pack, which comes stocked only with teams that have over 12 points per ballot, despite its loss.

Elsewhere, Baylor jumps an incredible 53 spots to 18th, which may be is the largest ever one-week jump in the BlogPoll. Their only vote last week came from Rakes of Mallow writer Chris Wilson ... who now writes for One Foot Down, SB Nation's new Notre Dame blog, since Rakes of Mallow is defunct. Congrats, Baylor: You made a defunct blog look great and some dummy who hadn't changed the defunct blog's voter's display name pretty dumb! (That second guy is me.)

And the typical passel of early recalibrations happens, too: Ohio State, Mississippi State, Florida, South Florida, Penn State, and Houston all jump after wins, while Florida State and Michigan State fall because of other teams' more impressive wins.

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, Memphis) would all be at the top.

Nobody knows what to do with 1) a team that looked like an offensive juggernaut and nearly gave up a three-touchdown lead to a first-time starter in the fourth quarter of a home game or 2) a team that was missing its best cornerback, lost its starting and backup running back, and fumbled the ball all over the place or 3) a team that beat a team apparently addicted to crippling turnovers during a game intermittently interrupted by torrential rain. Go figure. (If you don't know which is which, I cannot help you. Try turning on a television on Saturday.)

Baylor was ranked as high as second and left off some polls; Oregon was ranked as high as third, and also found itself outside some polls.

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.

Both Black Heart Gold Pants (Cincinnati, No. 3!) and Frogs O' War (Clemson, No. 4!) strictly rely on resume voting from Week 2 on, which is why both have LSU on top and a bunch of teams few would agree are actually among the top 25 teams in the country. But crediting those teams that play and win difficult games in the opening weeks of the season is nobly dogmatic, as is trying to ascertain which wins over FCS teams are worth anything, so my hat's off to both of these voters.

I'll say this: it's pretty impressive to have three teams tied to two decimal places in this category. That they are from fans of teams as disparate as Ohio State, Texas, and South Florida is doubly so.

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.

Hog Database and Pistols Firing have the Hogs and Cowboys, respectively, in the top 10, though both blogs actually dropped their schools this week. That's enough for this category.

It should not surprise you at this point that EDSBS' Spencer Hall is either committed to scattershot objectivity or eternally brined in a pessimism borne of once watching Ron Zook when it comes to Florida. Or both.

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.

Again, resume balloting produces weirdness.

SpartyMSU dropped Boise State three spots, kept TCU ranked and didn't rank Baylor, ranked Oregon No. 7, and bumped Auburn up a spot despite Auburn nearly losing at home to Utah State. That's an impressive commitment to an alternate reality in which all of those things make sense.