Another week of football. As Shawna pointed out, the season's almost half over! That's horrible (not the least because my dissertation is due at the end of the season. AGH!). Anyway, another good slate of games, and some really fun moments in the night games.

Finally, a truly satisfying week of football! Appropriate, given that Mumme Poll voting started up again this week.

On Saturday, while I was rooting for Stanford, I think football won in Eugene: that was the kind of game I like to watch. Additionally, Air Force beat Navy for the first time in 7 years and did so in classic fashion. I wish Air Force had held on against Oklahoma, because I think they (and not TCU or Utah) are the team to beat in the MWC. We'll see.

So, The Mumme Poll doesn't start until Week 3, and the 2010 edition of my ranking program isn't ready yet (stupid dissertation). That said, that doesn't mean I can't engage in some wildly unverifiable speculation, eh?!

What a week to end the season! Football had been really bringing me down lately, but this weekend--minus 30 minutes of watching Grand Valley State wipe the floor w/ Carson-Newman--was wall-to-wall excitement (& it was esp. helped by Georgia Tech overcoming failure & finally pulling out an ACC championship).

Ho hum, another week, another Mumme Poll ballot. I grow weary of this season.

As a lot of people have pointed out, there's not a whole lot interesting going on in college football, this season (esp. at the top). Also, this was (at least on the surface) a pretty dismal week of football. That said, I enjoyed watching Texas Tech rip apart Oklahoma with their new quarterback Nick Potts (there's two links in that name, so make sure to click both). Additionally, the bits of Oregon / Arizona I got to watch online (b/c apparently ESPN thinks ppl in Georgia are more interested in Texas & Kansas) were really exciting. I was sad to see Stanford play like, well, Stanford in The Big Game. Also, I really loved watching Notre Dame & Georgia lose on senior night at home. Fun times!

Ahh, another week, another week of football. Frankly, I'm getting a little bored. Texas, Alabama, and Florida all won and all stayed ranked in the top 3, despite the fact that I think we can safely claim that Texas is the only of those three that seems to want the ranking. While I've been a bit of a Florida booster for the last few years, I have to say I'm really starting to actively root against these guys. My dad likes to say that he vividly remembers during a Baltimore Colts game an announcer proclaiming that the Colts looked "like a bunch of tired businessmen." I'm starting to think the Gators have that same vibe: they look like they have senioritis ("ho-hum, I guess we'll win another national championship").

And here we are again: another Sunday morning, another blog post about my Mumme Poll ballot.

A lot of movement this week. Also, now that I have a computer poll, I can have my first controversy: the computer and the human voter disagree! I've attached week 9 numbers for my computer poll below, so you can see the disagreements. Basically, I bounced Iowa and Alabama from the Top 5 in favor of moving up TCU and Boise State. I thought about having Oregon in the Top 5, but couldn't really figure out why they should be so ranked, esp. above Boise State (other than swatting USC like the annoying flies they are!). I also moved Alabama out of the Top 5 b/c, despite not playing this week, a lot of their competition put up some serious offensive numbers and I feel that this is going to be increasingly important down the stretch (esp. now that Florida's offense remembered how to complete passes to Florida receivers instead of defensive backs). Iowa got moved out of the Top 5, b/c I'm becoming convinced that my computer (& the BCS computers) loves them b/c they are already 9-0, while most teams are only 8-0. My ranking algorithm rewards teams w/ more games played. Also, if you only watched the first three quarters against Indiana, you would probably think about bouncing them, too. B/c as it is obvious they are going to win the Big Ten, the question becomes: "can Iowa beat Oregon in a Rose Bowl?" I think the answer, after Oregon's day against SC, is clearly "no."

Ahh the joys of finally getting exactly what you want from football. There were two things I was looking forward to happening this weekend:

1. Georgia Tech beats Virginia (34-9)
2. Clemson beats Miami (40-37; this was quite a game, btw)

I take part in the Mumme Poll, an online effort to create a more efficacious football ranking. Each week, voters are asked to pick the twelve best teams in college football, designating five as the best and seven as the rest. The teams are then ranked according to voting frequency, w/ "top" designation being used as a tiebreaker.