Monday, November 10, 2008

Mumme Poll, Week 11

I participate in a weekly polling over at the Senator's site. For an explanation, here is the basic premise for the poll. Below is my Mumme Poll for Week 11. Top 5 are noted by asterisks, explanations to follow. Also, note that my teams are ranked in no particular order, so just because they're the last team in the list doesn't mean I think they're the worst of the top 12 and vice-versa for first in the top 5:

Alabama*
Texas Tech*
Florida*
Oklahoma*
Texas*

Utah
Southern California
Penn State
Oklahoma State
Missouri
Ohio State
Georgia

- Alabama won the type of game that championship teams usually have one of during the year. A game that they grinded out despite playing fairly poorly.

- Now that Texas Tech is running the football and playing defense, they might have a claim to the best team in the country.

- Florida obliterated Vanderbilt on the road clinching the SEC East. They have no real challenges between them and Miami outside of the SEC Title Game. They are clicking on all cylinders and Tebow is trying to make another case for the Heisman.

- Oklahoma gets in the top five over Southern Cal because the loss to Texas is not nearly as bad as the loss to Oregon State. Oklahoma has practically quit playing defense this season once their LB Ryan Reynolds went down, but the offense hasn't let up at all. Should they beat Texas Tech, the tiebreaker for the Big 12 title game gets interesting.

- Texas remains in the top five after taking care of business against Baylor. I can't fault them for losing on what was essentially the last play of the game against Texas Tech.

- Utah is in the top twelve by virtue of their game against TCU last week which was a real slug fest if you watched it. You could argue they were the beneficiary of some missed field goals, but they're still undefeated and still beat the team that beat the OMG Best Team Ever.

- Speaking of the OMG Best Team Ever, Southern California remains in the top twelve with virtually no shot of moving into the top five the rest of the season. They've played no one of value since the Oregon State game and I'm penalizing them as such.

- Penn State drops out of the top five, but remains in the top twelve after the mind-boggling loss at Iowa. I'm blaming it on the pink locker rooms. How do you think the Rose Bowl feels about it's potential Rose Bowl match up of Penn State-Oregon State right now? For those that have forgotten, Penn State beat Oregon State 45-14 in September.

- Oklahoma State remains in the top twelve despite getting pretty much annihilated by Texas Tech. The game they played at Texas carries a lot of clout in my mind. I just think Texas Tech is playing at another level right now, so I'm not holding that against the Cowboys.

- Missouri gets back in the top twelve based on TCU's loss. Missouri's two losses are better than TCU's right now and they've pretty much wrapped up the Big 12 North.

- Ohio State is in the top twelve after a win against Northwestern this weekend. The only blemishes to date are to the two potential Rose Bowl participants, so their resume doesn't look too bad right now, but not too great either.

- Georgia sneaks back into my top twelve after a gut check win in Lexington. Honestly, if the only other team with a top twelve argument were anyone but Ball State, the Dawgs wouldn't be in my top twelve. This team has some serious issues on the defensive side of the ball right now. In the end, their two losses have come to the #1 and #3 ranked teams in the country right now. If I'm not going to hold Texas Tech's annihilation against Oklahoma State because Tech is playing at another level right now, then I reserve the right to use the same rationale for Georgia getting destroyed by Florida.

- This week's poll took me a little longer this week to work on, approximately 45 minutes.

- There's no room in my poll for any Big East teams or ACC teams at this point of the season. North Carolina came closest, but they've got this ugly losses against Virginia and Virginia Tech.

Let me know what you folks think, agree or disagree.

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