Now in its seventh year, the College Football BlogPoll is a weekly effort of dozens of college football-centric Web sites representing a wide array of schools under the oversight of SB Nation. As always, this is an ever-evolving snapshot meant to judge teams exclusively on their existing resumés. It pays as little regard as possible to my guess as to what's going to happen over the course of the season, or what would happen in a make-believe game "on a neutral field" or anywhere else. It's subjective, but ideally, it's not a guess: It's a judgment on the evidence that actually exists. It is not a power poll.
I never refer to my previous ballot when drawing up a new one, so there is no specific explanation for why LSU "jumped" Alabama into the top spot this week. In fact, I like the idea of alternating the Tigers and Crimson Tide in and out of the No. 1 slot on a weekly basis, because I still see no point in distinguishing between them until the Day of the Crimson Tiger on Nov. 5.
Both have won big road games outside of the conference, both have blown Florida to smithereens, both have avoided anything resembling a letdown. Between them, they represent the only loss(es) over the first six weeks for five different teams. So both remain 1a and 1b for another week.
• Yeah, I think that qualifies. Oklahoma's effortless swatting of Texas Saturday makes it the closest thing to a 1c — the Sooners were alternately surgical on offense and brutish thugs on D — though it is tougher to account for their close call at Florida State in the wake of FSU's loss at Wake Forest. As a group, all of the dozen remaining undefeated teams (excluding 6-0 Houston, which has played and will play no one of consequence) have a lot to recommend them, and forecast some potentially epic showdowns if they keep winning over the second half of the season:{YSP:MORE}
Oct. 29: Clemson at Georgia Tech.
Nov. 5: LSU at Alabama.
Nov. 12: Oregon at Stanford.
Dec. 3: Oklahoma at Oklahoma State; Wisconsin/Illinois vs. Michigan (Big Ten Championship Game).
Farfetched as it is to expect the landscape two months from now to look anything like it does today, the BCS championship race is essentially down to the winners of those five games — and only four if Oregon beats Stanford. (Sorry, Boise.)
• Patience, please. Speaking of the Ducks, it may look like a snub to leave them sitting all the way down at 15th with their point-a-minute offense actually generating right around a point a minute over the last four games. But the biggest gap between my perception of a team's actual merit and the reality of its resumé to date is concerning Stanford. The Cardinal's schedule — San Jose State, Duke, Arizona, UCLA, Colorado — is so mediocre that their complete dominance over it has barely registered outside of insomniacs.
If you ask me who among the Undefeated Dozen is most likely to be standing with perfect record intact in December, though, I'd probably say Stanford: I think the Carinal are as physically dominant as anyone in the country, including Alabama and LSU, and the only real obstacles to 12-0 are a trip to USC and November visits from Oregon and Notre Dame. Keep on winning, kids, and your day will come.
• So you're… not evicting Florida, then. Yeah, that's right. You got a problem with that?
The Gators are part of a respectable two-loss quintet I stuck at the bottom of the poll as a nod to outfits that don't deserve to be defined by taking their lumps against A-plus competition: Of the ten losses suffered to date by Texas A&M, Notre Dame, Georgia, Florida and Auburn, six have come at the hands of undefeated teams I have ranked in the top ten, and the other four have come against teams that have only lost once. (And two of those defeats are courtesy of Arkansas, whose only loss is to Alabama.) Florida's back-to-back flops against Alabama and LSU were grisly, lopsided beatdowns, yes, but against Alabama and LSU, there doesn't seem to be any alternative.
• Proof. This week's resumé grid for public consumption:
L: Losses
PPG: Average margin of victory (points per game).
YPP: Average margin per play (yards per play).
Sked: Strength of schedule (as calculated by Jeff Sagarin).
As always, everything will be completely different next week.
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Matt Hinton is on Facebook and Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
