Week eight of the college football season produced by far the most action of any week so far. Some highly-ranked teams, many untested until now, fell to either a bad game, bad luck, or simply weren't good enough to win. It has been an eventful week.
Topping the topplers, if you will, is Oklahoma, who fell to the Texas Tech Red Raiders by a field goal in Norman. Every other poll I have seen dropped them as many as 8 spots, but I dropped them only half of that. This is still an outstanding football team that has four highly-ranked foes left on their schedule in the incredibly tough Big 12, 10, whatever.
Needless to say, Texas Tech took a huge leap up the board to land at #18 on my ballot. Other big losers include the Wisconsin Badgers, who lost in East Lansing, Michigan by dint of a fluke "hail Mary" on the last play of the game. Big winners include Stanford, who jumped up the rankings on the strength of an astonishing beat-down of the well-regarded Washington Huskies. If the Cardinal goes to Southern Cal next week and whips up on the Trojans, they are well-positioned to be first in line as the other BCS contender depending on which of Alabama or LSU finally loses two weeks from last Saturday.
Houston also makes a big move up my ballot primarily due to being undefeated right now. If Boise can be ranked 5th by beating up on mostly nobodies, it's hard to deny the Cougars some love for doing the same. Georgia Tech dives hard, but not completely off my ballot due to losing two in a row, both in tough road environments. I still think the Yellow Jackets are the second-best team in the ACC despite two losses, but they had better show up against Clemson or this could be their last appearance on the ballot for a while.
Speaking of the Fighting Dabos, Clemson is starting to show a few cracks with relatively competitive games the last two weeks, and look to me to be ripe for an upset when they head down to Atlanta next weekend. Clemson has seriously overachieved this year, and beating Georgia Tech on their home turf just seems like a bridge to far to me.
The rest of my ballot is as follows:
A Sea of Blue Ballot - Week 9
| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | LSU Tigers | -- |
| 2 | Alabama Crimson Tide |
 1 |
| 3 | Oklahoma St. Cowboys |
1 |
| 4 | Stanford Cardinal |
5 |
| 5 | Boise St. Broncos | -- |
| 6 | Oklahoma Sooners |
 -4 |
| 7 | Clemson Tigers | -- |
| 8 | Oregon Ducks | -- |
| 9 | Wisconsin Badgers |
-3 |
| 10 | Kansas St. Wildcats |
3 |
| 11 | Nebraska Cornhuskers | -- |
| 12 | Arkansas Razorbacks |
-2 |
| 13 | South Carolina Gamecocks |
-1 |
| 14 | Michigan St. Spartans |
4 |
| 15 | Virginia Tech Hokies |
2 |
| 16 | Texas A&M Aggies |
4 |
| 17 | Michigan Wolverines |
-1 |
| 18 | Houston Cougars |
7 |
| 19 | Georgia Bulldogs |
2 |
| 20 | Arizona St. Sun Devils |
3 |
| 21 | Texas Tech Red Raiders | -- |
| 22 | Texas Longhorns | -- |
| 23 | Penn St. Nittany Lions | -- |
| 24 | Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets |
-9 |
| 25 | Baylor Bears |
-1 |
| Dropouts: West Virginia Mountaineers, Illinois Fighting Illini | ||
SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings "
So what do you think? What would you change?