Pre-Season BlogPoll

Before I leave this afternoon for Bristol and the Sharpie 500, I will attend to an important piece of record keeping: this year’s preseason BlogPoll is out. For the third year in a row, I will be the vote representing Tulane. But I am not the lone C-USA voice- see here for Southern Miss’ Saturday Morning QB- a blog with the best tag line going: Second-guessing the split-second decisions of college kids under extreme physical duress since 2005.

Anyway, below is my initial ballot. The poll encourages you to pick the best team(s)- rather than try to figure out who will have the undefeated regular season needed to advance to the BCS Championship Game.

Yes, my ballots have a bias toward the SEC. Absolutely I do. Now that might be because as a Tulane fan, I’ve been beat about the head by these factories since the day I enrolled. But very few BCS conference teams could navigate a full SEC slate without at least two, probably three losses- and the ones I think could do two losses or better are the dozen or so that join my Top 12 or so. USC is one of those teams. Some power Big 10 programs. Louisville and Rutgers are categorically not one of the those teams.

Florida and LSU are interchangeable at the top- the best teams in the by far best league- but Florida is the champ, and their coach just wins and wins, so I give respect. I put Wisconsin over Michigan only cause Michigan has got to go there- rather than vice versa. And of course, my predicted C-USA champion goes at #25

1 Florida
2 LSU
3 Southern Cal
4 Wisconsin
5 Texas
6 Michigan
7 Auburn
8 Virginia Tech
9 Oklahoma
10 Ohio State
11 West Virginia
12 Tennessee
13 Georgia
14 Penn State
15 California
16 Nebraska
17 Rutgers
18 Florida State
19 Louisville
20 Brigham Young
21 Arkansas
22 Miami (Florida)
23 Boise State
24 Alabama
25 Southern Miss