Um, OK, so that 8 am Monday morning deadline is a hard deadline? Oh. Even if I was delayed by coming back from a game? Double oh.
So, anyway, here's how my ballot for the week would have worked had I been more timely with submitting it...
A couple of notes:(1) Bama gets the nod over OU for the top spot since the Tide have had a better opportunity to demonstrate on the field. OU (or perhaps even LSU) could grab it away after this week.
(2) I think the biggest complaint of my rankings last week was undervaluing Oklahoma State. I've adjusted for that this week.
(3) Again, I did not look at my ranking from last week at all when ranking this week to try and avoid pre-determined biases, though it's impossible not to remember roughly where any particular team was ranked. So if I "dropped" a team despite a win, that doesn't mean I necessarily think less of them. It more likely reflects the fact that another team or two has had a better opportunity in the early stages of a season to show what it can do against better opposition.
(4) Again, emphasizing what's happened on the field over maintaining preseason predictions, so I might be a bit skewed from the typical ballot. This most manifests itself by my "punishing" teams like Nebraska and Ohio State who struggled against mid-tier teams. If they keep winning, though, that will all balance out at the end of the day.
(1) Alabama
(2) Oklahoma
(3) Boise State
(4) LSU
(5) Wisconsin
(6) Oklahoma State
(7) Stanford
(8) Texas A&M
(9) Florida State
(10) Arkansas
(11) Michigan State
(12) Oregon
(13) South Carolina
(14) South Florida
(15) Virginia Tech
(16) Florida
(17) Baylor
(18) Nebraska
(19) Houston
(20) West Virginia
(21) Texas
(22) Central Florida
(23) Ohio State
(24) Auburn
(25) Mississippi State