BlogPoll 5 is out

The current BlogPoll is out- you can view it here. I finished second for Mr. Bold-the voter with the ballot most divergent from the poll at large. It is primarily because I like the SEC an awful lot, throw a little love to UTEP, and think the Big Ten is largely a collection of middling teams.

Although it did occur to me that Wisconsin has a decent chance to run the table. Again the Big Ten is no great shakes, the schedule features only not-too-bad road games: Minnesota, Penn State, Illinios, Hawai'i- and Iowa and Purdue must go to Madison. Michigan is beaten- and Michigan State isn't on it. This team is playing great defense- and that tends to travel. Need a long shot BCS team- you could do worse than Wisconsin.

There is some more discussion on this topic and conference championship picks on the BlogPoll Roundtable- hosted this week by ParadigmBlog.

It wasn't until I was done that I realized I did not vote for a single Big East Team. With Penn State sort of, kind of, okay- these are bad times for eastern football. Rutgers is a long way from good people. And Villanova is I-AA.

My ballot:

1 Southern Cal: Matt Leinhart, HRH- is both real pretty and real good.
2 Texas
3 Georgia
4 Tennessee: can't put them ahead of Georgia, as I think LSU is a bit of a fraud
5 Florida State
6 Florida: my view: Tulane -2.5 @ Kentucky
7 Virginia Tech
8 Ohio State: tough test in Happy Valley. PSU is competent and ought to be geeked.
9 Miami (Florida)
10 Notre Dame: might actually be a Top 12 team- but brutal schedule probably means they drop three of next four
11 Alabama
12 Virginia
13 Texas Tech
14 Michigan State
15 Iowa State
16 LSU: good team- but coach is clearly learning and probably a minus in a big spot.
17 Arizona State
18 California
19 UTEP
20 UCLA
21 Wisconsin: every single game left is very winnable
22 Purdue: brutal October (Notre Dame, Iowa, N'western, @ Wisconsin, @Penn State-whew!)
23 Minnesota
24 Auburn
25 Penn State: people laugh at them, but why can't they get to 8-3 and a nice bowl game?