ATQ BlogPoll: Are There Even 25 Teams Worthy of Being Ranked?

This is supposed to get easier as the season goes on. The cream rises to the top. The rest fall back. And most of the top 25 is pretty clearly defined. Not this year. Because, once you get into the mid teens, I don't really find a whole lot of teams worthy of the prestige of a top-25 ranking. And, since I actually, um, watch the games (unlike tose voters who actually count), I can't just rank teams because they have a big name. Among the teams that the mainstream pollsters rank that are nowhere on my ballot:

Penn State: They've lost their only two big games this year by multiple scores at home. Their best wins this year? Minnesota and Northwestern. Hardly top 25 material.

BYU: They can't ride the Oklahoma win anymore because Oklahoma has been exposed as a giant fraud. Meanwhile, in their biggest home games (TCU and Florida State), they have been throttled in both.

Wisconsin : Upon further review, their resume isn't much different from Penn State's. They're remarkably similar, and neither are any good.

South Florida: Beating West Virginia isn't enough to get you ranked.

West Virginia: The BEST wins here are Colorado and UConn. Hardly inspiring.

You also won't see quirky or lazy rankings among teams with similar resumes. Oregon is ahead of USC who is ahead of Ohio State. Despite the love affair with TCU, Cincinnati does have a slightly better resume and is ranked accordingly, and in keeping consistent with my previous complaints about Boise's schedule, I have Georgia Tech ranked above them with the better resume. The one case where teams with the same record aren't ranked based on head to head are Navy and Temple, where Navy's resume is clearly superior. And when Navy and Temple are ranked, you know that there is a serious dearth of major conference schools deserving. Here is our ballot:

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama	2
2	Florida
3	Texas	2
4	Cincinnati	3
5	TCU
6	Georgia Tech	4
7	Boise State	2
8	LSU
9	Oregon	3
10	Southern Cal	4
11	Iowa	7
12	Pittsburgh	1
13	Miami (Florida)	3
14	Ohio State	4
15	Houston	2
16	Arizona	1
17	Virginia Tech	5
18	Oklahoma State	1
19	Oregon State
20	Utah	5
21	Stanford
22	Clemson
23	Central Michigan
24	Navy
25	Temple
Last week's ballot

Dropped Out: Penn State (#12), California (#20), Notre Dame (#21), Wisconsin (#23), Brigham Young (#24), South Florida (#25).