The Ralphie Report 2009 Preseason Blog Poll

by Jon Woods on Aug 26, 2009 7:17 PM MDT in College Football BlogPoll

Now in its fifth year, the Blog Poll is a weekly effort of dozens of college football-centric Web sites representing a wide array of schools under the oversight of founder/manager/guru Brian Cook at MGoBlog, and now appears on CBS Sportsline. It’s an effort to provide a more rigorous check on the mainstream polls that actually, like, count toward the mythical championship, and enthusiastically shines a light on its voters' biases. But mainly, it’s fun. The initial poll of the season will be released this week.

Here's my initial attempt at ranking the top 25 college football teams going into the 2009 season. In order to make this as unbiased as possible I tried to pay as little attention to the various polls that have been coming out over the last few weeks but I'm sure that the top 4 teams are nearly identical to every other poll. Outside of those 4 this year seemed a lot tougher than previous years. For this first poll I take every D1 school that I could possibly see being ranked at some point this season (which came out to 49 of 'em) and then started the process of ranking the top 25. The last ten or so wasn't easy as I had a hard time finding worthy squads.

It's far from perfect so take a look and let me know what you would do differently...

Rank	Team

1	Florida
2	Texas
3	Oklahoma
4	Southern Cal
5	Alabama
6	LSU
7	Penn State
8	Virginia Tech
9	Ohio State
10	California
11	Mississippi
12	Oklahoma State
13	Notre Dame
14	Georgia Tech
15	Oregon
16	TCU
17	Iowa
18	Kansas
19	Oregon State
20	Florida State
21	North Carolina
22	Texas Tech
23	Boise State
24	North Carolina State
25	Georgia

Next five teams: Nebraska, BYU, West Virginia, Rutgers, Arizona (consider this one my Steve Spurrier/Duke pick)

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Comments

ND?

by CleBUFFS on Aug 26, 2009 9:36 PM MDT reply actions

I know. I said the same thing when I put them there. But they have a lot of talent, especially if the Ostrich finally puts it together at QB. Plus with the schedule they have this season I think they will be a serious threat to take a spot in a BCS bowl. I’m Catholic and I don’t even like ND (sorry Irish).

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by Jon Woods on Aug 26, 2009 10:56 PM MDT via mobile up reply actions

Drinking the Lou Holtz Kool Aid?

Saw he predicted them to reach the BCS championship game

by NYCskibum on Aug 27, 2009 10:50 AM MDT up reply actions

Don't worry

I’ll revisit these picks when the season is over so we can see if I was nuts

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by Jon Woods on Aug 27, 2009 12:24 PM MDT up reply actions

Seriously

their schedule is easy but they are not a top 20 team yet. Or, at least they have proven nothing,. watch them lose to Michigan and/or Michigan State.

by CleBUFFS on Aug 26, 2009 9:37 PM MDT reply actions

LSU at #6

Go back and look at their wins and losses from a year ago. And go before you cite the blowout of GT in the Peach Bowl, compare the total yardage and then notice how many time GT shot themselves in the foot. (turnovers).

by Chew on Aug 27, 2009 7:39 AM MDT reply actions

I agree

But go back and look at who was QB’ing them all last year. Lee and Hatch won’t be anywhere near the Center this season and I think that that will make a big difference. I think that Chavis will be able to turn around that defense very quickly, their is WAY too much talent there for him not to.

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by Jon Woods on Aug 27, 2009 7:52 AM MDT up reply actions

I am just glad their is no Nebraska

in the top 25…it is also wierd to see Georgia just squeak in there.

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by Bob_Bell on Aug 27, 2009 8:04 AM MDT reply actions

I have to be honest

I probably rated Georgia too low. I don’t know enough about their QB or defense situation.

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by Jon Woods on Aug 27, 2009 8:59 AM MDT up reply actions

Notre Dame at 13 is just .... wow

For a team that couldn’t muster a first down until the end of the 3rd quarter against USC last year and lost to a horrible Syracuse squad at home that is pretty, pretty generous.

Other than that, I can’t really disagree too much. Hopefully we see the Buffs crack the polls this year.

by Business Socks on Aug 27, 2009 10:23 AM MDT reply actions

Biggest Omission: BYU → They are likely going to be this year’s Utah

Biggest Reach: Oregon at #15. New HC, 9 Starters returning… If you’re going to put UGA low because of your questions, it seems silly to put Oregon so high, considering they have as many (if not more) questions.

Clone Chronicles

by Mark Kieffer on Aug 27, 2009 2:50 PM MDT reply actions

BYU's schedule is too hard.

They are going to get killed by OU and will most likely lose to FSU.

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by Jon Woods on Aug 27, 2009 3:55 PM MDT up reply actions

BYU will lose to OU, fall to #25, with their only challenging games afterwards being FSU, TCU, and Utah. Fortunatley for them, these are all homegames. If they get past TCU, they will win the Mountain West…

Clone Chronicles

by Mark Kieffer on Aug 28, 2009 8:32 AM MDT up reply actions

my opinion:

you should have ranked them based on how good you that the teams are right now, at the beginning of the season, instead of trying to project out what their record will be at the end of the season.

Heavy is the head that eats the crayons

by Hallux Valgus on Aug 27, 2009 5:10 PM MDT reply actions

I did.

I based it mostly on head 2 head neutral field matchups. I know I’m defending some of them based on schedule but it really didn’t factor into my rankings. With BYU the fact that they lost 2 starting lineman had a lot to do with it.

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by Jon Woods on Aug 27, 2009 8:28 PM MDT via mobile up reply actions