Has Opinion on Health Care Shifted?

For months leading up to the passage of health care, the pollster.com average found a net plurality of around 5-12 percentage points disapproved of the plan.  The first poll taken after passage, however, found the public in favor of the plan by a 49-40 margin.  Was that just an outlier, or has opinion actually shifted?

There have been five polls polls taken after passage of the bill.  Here's how they stack up:

	Favor	Oppose	Net
WaPo	46	50	-4
CBS	42	46	-4
Quinnipiac	40	49	-9
USA Today-Gallup	49	40	9
YouGov	50	50	0
average	45.4	47	-1.6

Across these five polls, a plurality still disapprove of health care -- but only a very slight one.  Let's compare them to the last five polls released before passage:

	Favor	Oppose	Net
Bloomberg	38	50	-12
CNN	39	59	-20
CBS	37	48	-11
Quinnipiac	36	54	-18
Rasmussen	41	54	-13
average	38.2	53	-14.8

The last five polls were among the most negative of the past year.  Whether this is due to the build-up before passage or simply the five that happened to be last, I can't quite say.  Comparing these 10, we see a 13 point swing in net approval of the health care bill.  But this might not be the right comparison groups.  Given the different questions and samples of the polls, it might be better to compare polls taken by the same organization before and after.  There have been three of these:

	After			Before
	Favor	Oppose	Net	Favor	Oppose	Net
CBS	42	46	-4	37	48	-11
Quinnipiac	40	49	-9	36	54	-18
YouGov	50	50	0	48	53	-5
average	44	48.33	-4.33	40.33	51.67	-11.33

Looking at only these three, we find a 7 point swing in net approval -- and we still see a small plurality (though not majority) opposed to the bill.

The trend could be just a blip, could be based on a few faulty polls, or could be a genuine shift in how Americans view the health care bill (or at least how they report they feel).  If the first two are true, new polls will pretty quickly bear this out.  But there are two fairly good reasons to believe that the last one is, in fact, happening:

1.) The initial results were misleading.  Take the these results from a Bloomberg poll taken right before the vote in which 38% favored the bill and 50% were opposed

Health care is so complicated it is hard for the average American to understand the proposals that are currently being discussed
75% Agree, 23% Disagree

The cost of doing nothing on health care will be greater than the cost of the proposed plan to overhaul it
51% Agree, 40% Disagree

The health care system is fine the way it is
20% Agree, 79% Disagree

In short, people don't know much about the health care bill but they want to do something to fix the broken health care system.

2.) As 538 points out, a small but meaningful number of people opposed the bill b/c it wasn't liberal enough.  The approval numbers among Independents and Republicans in the new USA Today/Gallup poll is roughly similar to other previous polls, but the approval numbers among Democrats are much higher.

In the last poll before the bill passed (and outlier in terms of negativity toward the bill), conducted by CNN, 59% reported that they were opposed to the bill -- but 13% reported opposing the bill b/c it wasn't liberal enough.  In other words, 52% of the population either favored the bill or thought it wasn't liberal enough while 43% opposed the bill b/c it was too liberal.

The Pirates' Turnaround: Where's the Proof?

After a multi-part fire sale and two consecutive years of record draft expenditures, the Pirates' brass claims to have transformed the system so that the team can now build from within.  But where's the evidence of this?

In a 30 team league, only two Pirates ranked among the top 100 prospects, their fewest since 2005, (all-time list of Pirates who have ranked among BA's top 100 ) -- only two organizations had fewer this year.  Even worse, it appears that only four would rank among the top 200 or so . . . and three of these four are slated to make their major league debuts this year.

So even if those three pan out, where does this leave the team next year and down the road?  Will lower rated players and new draft picks shine this summer and move up the ranks?  While that might have seemed like a legitimate hope five years ago, it hasn't happened much recently.

When we look at the past couple years, that possibility looks less likely than one might imagine.  Of last year's top 10 prospects, one (McCutchen) moved up to the bigs, three maintained their positions (Alvarez, Tabata, and Lincoln), and the other 6 dropped out of the top 10.  If we go back another year to the 2008 top 10, we see that only two (McCutchen and Lincoln) made the bigs or remain top prospects.  So even if we assume that the top four will pan out, the past few years don't lend much evidence that numbers 5-10 will move up the ranks.

Indeed, if we go back further and examine the Pirates' top ten prospects over the past 7 years we see that only one player (Steve Pearce, #8-2006/#3-2007) has moved from the bottom half to the top half of the list in the past 5.  As the table below shows, 17 of the 18 prospects ranked 5-10 dropped off the list the following year (1, Pearce, moved up to the majors) between 2007 and 2010.  Between 2004 and 2007, however, only 4 dropped off the list the following year while 7 remained on the list and 8 moved up to the majors.

Pirates Prospects #5-10 the following year

years	steady	up	down	majors	dropped
2009-10	0	0	0	0	6
2008-09	0	0	0	0	6
2007-08	0	1	0	0	5
2006-07	0	0	0	6	0
2005-06	0	3	1	1	1
2004-05	0	2	0	1	3

As you might notice from the tables I linked to, all of the prospects who topped out in the bottom five and went on to become impact major leaguers -- Nate McLouth (#6, 2006), Matt Capps (#10, 2006), Freddy Sanchez (#7, 2004), and Ryan Doumit (#10, 2004) -- were from the earlier time period.  Daniel McCutchen is the only name that stands out from 2007-09 who could potentially be added to that list.  And maybe it's just my imagination, but it seems that the lists have recently been dominated by first-round draft picks and outside acquisitions while in the past there were more later round draft picks (e.g. Zach Duke, Nate McLouth, Ian Snell) who ascended up the list.

Of course, maybe this year will be different.  After all, in addition to standouts Alvarez and Sanchez, they have five former top 100 prospects (Jose Tabata, Gorkys Hernandez, Brad Lincoln, Neil Walker, and Tim Alderson) in their system along with a number of later-round selections from the past couple years who signed for over-slot bonuses.  Maybe the new management team's draft and development brilliance will begin to shine through this year (and, given the discussion above, it might be imperative that it does).  But such an occurrence would stand in stark contrast to recent trends.

I suppose the best measure may come when Baseball America ranks farm systems again -- the Pirates ranked 18th last year.  Though, given the context, I'd argue that next year's rating might be far more important.

As a Pirates fan, I very much want to believe that new management has transformed the minor league system.  But I see very little objective evidence that it has.

Final Top 25 Update

Even though I think bowl games are meaningless, I couldn't resist one last update.  Here's how the bowl season played out (teams that lost crossed out):

 

Previous			Projected			My Rankings
1.	Alabama		1.	Alabama		1.	Alabama
2.	Texas		2.	Florida		2.	Florida
3.	TCU		3.	Boise State		3.	Texas
4.	Cincinnati		4.	Texas		4.	Boise State
5.	Florida		5.	Ohio State		5.	TCU
6.	Boise State		6.	TCU		6.	Ohio State
7.	Oregon		7.	Cincinnati		7.	Iowa
8.	Ohio State		8.	Iowa		8.	Cincinnati
9.	Georgia Tech		9.	Penn State		9.	Penn State
10.	Iowa		10.	VA Tech		10.	VA Tech
11.	Penn State		11.	Oregon		11.	Oregon
12.	Virginia Tech		12.	GA Tech		12.	GA Tech
13.	LSU		13.	BYU		13.	Pitt
14.	Miami (Fla.)		14.	Pitt		14.	Nebraska
15.	Brigham Young		15.	Nebraska		15.	Wisconsin
16.	Oregon State		16.	LSU		16.	LSU
17.	Pittsburgh		17.	Miami (Fla.)		17.	Miami (Fla.)
18.	West Virginia		18.	Utah		18.	Tex Tech
19.	Stanford		19.	Wisconsin		19.	BYU
20.	Nebraska		20.	C. Michigan		20.	Oregon St.
21.	Okla St.		21.	Tex Tech		21.	USC
22.	Arizona		22.	Oregon St.		22.	Ole Miss
23.	Utah		23.	USC		23.	Rutgers
24.	Wisconsin		24.	Clemson		24.	Stanford
25.	C. Michigan		25.	Ole Miss		25.	W. Virginia
26.	E. Carolina		26.	W. Virginia		26.	C. Michigan
27.	Houston		27.	Stanford
28.	Texas Tech		28.	OK State
29.	USC		29.	Rutgers
30.	Northwestern		30.	Georgia
31.	Clemson		31.	Navy
32.	Cal		32.	Oklahoma
33.	Ole Miss
34.	UNC
35.	Oklahoma
36.	Tennessee
37.	Missouri

 
Other Random Thoughts

-I don't attach much, if any, meaning to the outcomes of the bowl games.  The teams often have layoffs of a month or more, coaching staffs turnover, seniors start thinking about the NFL, teams play in weird places and try out new schemes, and so on . . . In the end, all but one of them is an exhibition game and the National Championship Game has had more than its share of fluky results as well.

-I'm not sure if I've ever seen two less impressive teams in the title game.  Despite Texas trying very hard to lose the game, it took Alabama 58 minutes to seal the deal.  In the end, 'bama only passed for 58 yards and averaged 4.0 yards per rush.  Despite Texas' offensive ineptitude, they actually outgained 'bama.  It's impossible to say whether the game wouldn't turned out differently had McCoy not gotten hurt, but I'm pretty darn sure that McCoy wouldn't have finished 15/40 with 4 INT's.

-Here are the final conference records for the bowl games.  Again, not that this means much:

Conf.	W	L	%
Big East	4	2	0.667
SEC	6	4	0.600
Big Ten	4	3	0.571
Pac 10	3	4	0.429
ACC	3	4	0.429
Big XII	3	5	0.375

Are the Pirates Really a "Small-Market" Team?

In today's posting on the Pittsburgh Baseball Club blog, Pirates Columnist Dejan Kovacevic takes issue with those who call Pittsburgh a "small-market" team.  He cites a list of US television markets ranked by size to show that there are a number of teams based in smaller markets than Pittsburgh.  Using that same list and simply dividing by two when a market has two teams, we end up with the table below of teams ranked by TV market size.  The Pirates rank 25th out of 30 teams.

It seems to me that ranking at the 17th percentile in terms of market size would merit the term "small-market".  To make matters worse, a number of teams below the Pirates have sizable fan bases in nearby large markets. The Orioles have a numbers of fans in the DC/Hagerstown and Norfolk/Portsmouth/Newport News areas and the Reds have fans in the Columbus and Nashville areas.  All four of these markets are made up around a million households or more.  What other large market contains a significant number of Pirates fans?  Harrisburg?  The closest team above the Pirates are the Cardinals, who have a number of fans in nearby Memphis.  In short, the only teams that I'm confident don't have more people within their area of influence (or "country of baseball") are San Diego, Kansas City, and Milwaukee.  Even if it's the case that these three teams are in smaller markets, that doesn't disprove the notion that Pittsburgh is a small market -- remember, it's small market; not smallest market.

In terms of his other points, I agree that market-size is not a huge issue for the Steelers and Penguins -- partially due to salary caps in their respective leagues and partially due to the immense popularity of the two teams -- and that a market, to some extent, is what a teams makes of it.  I guess the demarcation is between saying that the Pirates are hampered between being in a small market and saying that the Pirates can never compete because they're in a small market.  The former is demonstrably true, while the latter is demonstrably false.

Rank	Team	Designated Market Area (DMA)	TV Households
1	Yankees	New York, NY (/2)	3,746,765
2	Mets	New York, NY (/2)	3,746,765
3	Phillies	Philadelphia, PA	2,955,190
4	Dodgers	Los Angeles, CA (/2)	2,829,585
5	Angels	Los Angeles, CA (/2)	2,829,585
6	Rangers	Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX	2,544,410
7	Red Sox	Boston, MA (Manchester, NH)	2,410,180
8	Blue Jays	Toronto (est*)	2,400,000
9	Braves	Atlanta, GA	2,387,520
10	Nationals	Washington, DC (Hagerstown, MD)	2,335,040
11	Astros	Houston, TX	2,123,460
12	Tigers	Detroit, MI	1,890,220
13	Diamondbacks	Phoenix, AZ	1,873,930
14	Mariners	Seattle-Tacoma, WA	1,833,990
15	Rays	Tampa-St. Petersburg (Sarasota), FL	1,805,810
16	Cubs	Chicago, IL (/2)	1,750,505
17	White Sox	Chicago, IL (/2)	1,750,505
18	Twins	Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN	1,732,050
19	Rockies	Denver, CO	1,539,380
20	Marlins	Miami-Fort Lauderdale, FL	1,538,090
21	Indians	Cleveland-Akron (Canton), OH	1,520,750
22	Giants	San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, CA (/2)	1,251,700
23	A's	San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, CA (/2)	1,251,700
24	Cardinals	St. Louis, MO	1,249,450
25	Pirates	Pittsburgh, PA	1,154,950
26	Orioles	Baltimore, MD	1,093,170
27	Padres	San Diego, CA	1,073,390
28	Royals	Kansas City, MO	941,360
29	Reds	Cincinnati, OH	918,670
30	Brewers	Milwaukee, WI	901,790

notes: Dividing markets in half when that market has two teams results in misleading numbers, both because fan bases aren't split 50/50 and because most of those teams have geographic bases that cover other markets (e.g. the Yankees and Hartford, the Giants and Sacramento, and the Mariners and Portland (OR)). The figure for Toronto was estimated based on the fact that Toronto's metro area of 5.5 million people is slightly larger than the metro area for Atlanta.  I don't know what their actual Nielsen-equivalent number of households would be, but it's clearly much larger than the Pirates.

Top 25 Update

How this weekend played out:
(Teams that lost crossed out, teams with impressive wins in green)
update: actual rankings in parentheses -- I was within 1 for 19/30 teams

Previous			Projected			My Rankings
1.	Florida		1.	Alabama (1)		1.	Alabama
2.	Alabama		2.	Texas (2)		2.	Texas
3.	Texas		3.	TCU (3)		3.	Cincinnati
4.	TCU		4.	Cincinnati (4)		4.	TCU
5.	Cincinnati		5.	Florida (5)		5.	Florida
6.	Boise State		6.	Boise State (6)		6.	Boise State
7.	Oregon		7.	Oregon (7)		7.	Oregon
8.	Ohio State		8.	Ohio State (8)		8.	Ohio State
9.	Iowa		9.	Iowa (10)		9.	Iowa
10.	Penn State		10.	Penn State (11)		10.	Penn State
11.	Virginia Tech		11.	Virginia Tech (12)		11.	Virginia Tech
12.	Georgia Tech		12.	Georgia Tech (9)		12.	Georgia Tech
13.	Oregon State		13.	LSU (13)		13.	Oregon State
14.	Pitt		14.	Oregon St. (16)		14.	LSU
15.	LSU		15.	Pitt (17)		15.	Miami (Fla.)
16.	BYU		16.	BYU (15)		16.	West Virginia
17.	Miami (Fla.)		17.	Miami (Fla.) (14)		17.	Pitt
18.	Houston		18.	OK State (21)		18.	Stanford
19.	California		19.	Stanford (19)		19.	Nebraska
20.	USC		20.	West Virginia (18)		20.	Arizona
21.	Nebraska		21.	Nebraska (20)		21.	Wisconsin
22.	OK State		22.	Arizona (22)		22.	OK State
23.	Stanford		23.	Wisconsin (24)		23.	Clemson
24.	West Virginia		24.	Utah (23)		24.	Tex Tech
25.	Clemson		25.	Tex Tech (28)		25.	USC
26.	Utah		26.	USC (29)		26.	UNC
27.	Wisconsin		27.	Clemson (31)
28.	Tex Tech		28.	Ole Miss (33)
29.	Arizona		29.	Northwestern (30)
30.	Ole Miss		30.	C. Michigan (25)
31.	Northwestern
32.	C. Michigan

Other Random Thoughts

-Despite a number of exciting games, that was the least interesting second half of a season in recent memory -- zero (0) major upsets and virtually no BCS drama.  At least 'bama v. Texas should be an interesting match-up in the title game.

-Nebraska and Pitt both lost, in part, because of ultra-conservative play-calling late in the game.  Both have good defenses, but the coaches need to realize that good offense beats good defense right now in college football . . . and their teams were playing two of the best offenses in the country.  In Pitt's case, it marks the second time they've lost this year after being up 14 points in the 4th quarter.

-Worst play call by Pitt: an inside hand-off to their fullback on 3rd and 24 in the 3rd quarter.  2nd worst play call: a play-action pass (that resulted in a sack) on 4th down with 10 seconds left and 50+ yards away from FG range.

-It appeared that Pelini's decision to simply move the ball to the middle of the field on 3rd and 6 worked out well when they made a go ahead FG on the next play with 1:44 left.  But 1:44 is an awful lot of time for Colt McCoy to move his team into FG range.

-Speaking of McCoy, he almost made one of the dumbest plays of all time when he inexplicably let the game clock tick down to only 7 seconds remaining before snapping the ball.  Despite the initial controversy, there's absolutely no doubt that there was, in fact, 1 second left when his pass hit the ground.  But, still . . . what was he thinking?

-Somebody said there was an ACC title game today?  Did anybody else hear that rumor?

-Predicted Heisman voting:
1.) Ingram
2.) McCoy
3.) Suh
4.) Gerhart
5.) Tebow
6.) Spiller
7.) Tate

-My Heisman Ballot:
1.) Ingram
2.) Suh
3.) Spiller

update: I got the top 5 in the Heisman voting right, though time will tell how close I was on the order.  I think Suh might be higher and McCoy lower than I originally predicted.

Top 25 Update

How this weekend played out:
(teams that won crossed out, teams with impressive wins in green, teams with less than impressive wins in red)
update: actual rankings in parentheses -- I was within one for all of the top 17, but for only 3 of the next 17

 

Previous			Projected			My Rankings
1.	Florida		1.	Florida (1)		1.	Texas
2.	Texas		2.	Texas (3)		2.	Alabama
3.	Alabama		3.	Alabama (2)		3.	Florida
4.	TCU		4.	TCU (4)		4.	TCU
5.	Cincy		5.	Cincy (5)		5.	Cincy
6.	Boise St.		6.	Boise St. (6)		6.	Pitt
7.	GA Tech		7.	GA Tech (7)		7.	GA Tech
8.	Pitt		8.	Pitt (8)		8.	Ohio St.
9.	LSU		9.	Ohio St. (9)		9.	Oregon
10.	Ohio St.		10.	LSU (10)		10.	LSU
11.	USC		11.	Oregon (11)		11.	Boise St.
12.	Miami		12.	OK State (12)		12.	Iowa
13.	Houston		13.	Penn St. (13)		13.	Penn St.
14.	Oregon		14.	Stanford (14)		14.	Stanford
15.	Iowa		15.	VaTech (16)		15.	VaTech
16.	Utah		16.	Wisconsin (17)		16.	Wisconsin
17.	OK State		17.	Clemson (18)		17.	Oregon St.
18.	Arizona		18.	Iowa (15)		18.	Rutgers
19.	Penn St.		19.	Oregon St. (20)		19.	OK State
20.	VaTech		20.	USC (22)		20.	USC
21.	Wisconsin		21.	Rutgers (25)		21.	Clemson
22.	BYU		22.	Miami (21)		22.	Nebraska
23.	S. Florida		23.	Nebraska (27)		23.	UNC
24.	Clemson		24.	BYU (19)		24.	Miami
25.	Stanford		25.	UNC (26)		25.	Ole Miss
26.	Oregon St.		26.	Arizona (29)		26.	S. Florida
27.	W. Virginia		27.	Ole Miss (30)
28.	Auburn		28.	Navy (31)
29.	Texas Tech		29.	BC (38)
30.	Navy		30.	Utah (23)
31.	Tennessee		31.	Cal (28)
32.	Rutgers		32.	W. Virginia (35)
33.	Nebraska		33.	Houston (24)
			34.	S. Florida (NR)
			35.	Temple (32)

games between top 25 teams next week:

LSU at Ole Miss


other losable games for top 25 teams next week:

Ohio St. at Michigan
Duke at Miami
Oregon at Arizona
Minnesota at Iowa
Penn St. at Michigan St.
Wisconsin at Northwestern
Air Force at BYU
Cal at Stanford
UNC at BC
Kansas St. at Nebraska

other random thoughts:

-worst coaching move of the day goes to Kirk Ferentz of Iowa for running out the clock at the end of the game instead of trying to get into field goal position.  When your team is tied on the road against a top team, you have to take risks to win.  When his team had the ball within 40 yards of FG range with a minute on the clock he needed to make some sort of attempt to win the game.  Instead, he let it go into overtime and promptly lost.

-I don't know why that ball Jimmy Clausen tried to throw was ruled a fumble instead of an incomplete pass.  I've never seen a fumble propelled 8 yards forward by a QB's arm before.  The only possible explanation that I can think of is that he lost control of the ball before his arm moved forward (sure would've been nice if Musberger, Herbstreit, or somebody from the ABC crew had taken the time to figure out what the actual rule was during the review or the next two minutes of game time).

-I still stand by my prediction that TCU will emerge as the best non-BCS conference team by the end of the year

-Iowa has two losses and beat Wisconsin and Penn State, who both have two losses as well, on the road.  I'm betting the AP voters rank both ahead of Iowa anyway in this week's big rankings blunder.  Other head-to-head winners with identical records that will likely be ranked below the team they beat: UNC behind Miami, Cal behind Oregon, and South Florida behind West Virginia
update: Miami is, indeed, 5 spots ahead of UNC -- who continues to get little respect.  West Virginia is also ahead of South Florida, but Cal is one spot ahead of Arizona.  And, no, I don't think it's a travesty that Houston is behind Oklahoma St. since their records outside of that game are totally different.

another update:
underrated teams: Iowa, Rutgers, UNC, S. Florida
overrated teams: Boise St., OK State, BYU, Utah, Houston

Top 25 Update

How this weekend played out:
(teams that won crossed out, teams with impressive wins in green, teams with less than impressive wins in red)
update: actual rankings in parentheses, I was way off -- only came within one place on 15/34 teams.

Previous			Projected			My Rankings
1.	Florida		1.	Florida (1)		1.	Alabama
2.	Texas		2.	Alabama (3)		2.	Florida
3.	Alabama		3.	Texas (2)		3.	Texas
4.	Cincy		4.	Cincy (5)		4.	Cincy
5.	Boise St.		5.	TCU (4)		5.	TCU
6.	TCU		6.	Boise St. (6)		6.	Pitt
7.	Oregon		7.	GA Tech (7)		7.	GA Tech
8.	Iowa		8.	Oregon (16)		8.	Boise St.
9.	LSU		9.	USC (10)		9.	Oregon
10.	GA Tech		10.	Ohio St. (8)		10.	USC
11.	Penn St.		11.	Pitt (9)		11.	Ohio St.
12.	USC		12.	Iowa (13)		12.	Iowa
13.	Houston		13.	LSU (11)		13.	Penn St.
14.	Pitt		14.	Houston (12)		14.	LSU
15.	Ohio St.		15.	Miami (15)		15.	VaTech
16.	Miami		16.	Utah (14)		16.	Wisconsin
17.	Utah		17.	Okla St. (18)		17.	Arizona
18.	Okla St.		18.	Arizona (19)		18.	Miami
19.	Notre Dame		19.	Penn St. (17)		19.	S. Florida
20.	Oklahoma		20.	VaTech (21)		20.	Stanford
21.	Arizona		21.	Stanford (27)		21.	W. Virginia
22.	VaTech		22.	Wisconsin (20)		22.	Houston
23.	Cal		23.	Oregon St. (28)		23.	Oregon St.
24.	Wisconsin		24.	BYU (22)		24.	Okla St.
25.	BYU		25.	Nebraska (30)		25.	Rutgers
26.	S. Florida		26.	S. Florida (24)		26.	Clemson
27.	Clemson		27.	Clemson (26)
28.	Auburn		28.	Auburn (25)
29.	Texas Tech		29.	Texas Tech (29)
30.	W. Virginia		30.	W. Virginia (NR)
31.	Rutgers		31.	Rutgers (37)
			32.	UNC (34)
			33.	Navy (31)
			34.	Notre Dame (NR)

Games between top 25 teams next week:

Utah at TCU
Iowa at Ohio St.
Stanford at USC


Other losable games for top 25 teams:

Notre Dame at Pitt
Florida at S. Carolina
Cincy vs. W. Virginia
Texas Tech at OK St.
Arizona at Cal
Michigan at Wisconsin
Washington at Oregon St.
Miami at UNC


Other random thoughts

-I'm confident that the top four teams are legitimately top 10 teams, I'm somewhat convinced that TCU belongs, but past that I'm really not sure.  I'm not buying GA Tech, (who had another close win over a mediocre team) Boise St., (who had another close win over a below average team) or Pitt (who's schedule strength has been less than impressive) as legitimate top 10 teams at this point in time.  And USC, Oregon, Ohio St., and Iowa seem to alternate between impressive and unimpressive victories on a weekly basis.

-It's hard to believe that Oregon will only drop one spot in the rankings after losing to Stanford, but they can't drop below USC, who can't drop below Ohio St.  And how many teams can jump all three?
update: Apparently they can.  Oregon trounced USC, who beat Ohio St. on the road.  All three have identical records and pretty similar wins/losses outside of those games.  But Ohio St. is #8, USC is #10, and Oregon is #16.  Huh?

Top 25 Update

How this weekend played out
(teams that won crossed out, teams with impressive wins in green, teams with less than impressive wins in red)
update: actual rankings in parentheses.  I did pretty well on the top 17 (15/17 within one spot), but horribly after that (4/16 within one spot).
  

Previous			Projected			My Rankings
1.	Florida		1.	Florida (1)		1.	Alabama
2.	Alabama		2.	Alabama (3)		2.	Florida
3.	Texas		3.	Texas (2)		3.	Texas
4.	USC		4.	Cincy (4)		4.	Cincy
5.	Cincy		5.	Boise St. (5)		5.	Iowa
6.	Boise St.		6.	Oregon (7)		6.	TCU
7.	Iowa		7.	Iowa (8)		7.	Penn St.
8.	TCU		8.	TCU (6)		8.	Boise St.
9.	LSU		9.	LSU (9)		9.	Oregon
10.	Oregon		10.	GA Tech (10)		10.	GA Tech
11.	GA Tech		11.	Penn St. (11)		11.	LSU
12.	Penn St.		12.	USC (12)		12.	USC
13.	Okla St.		13.	Pitt (14)		13.	Pitt
14.	VaTech		14.	Ohio St. (15)		14.	Ohio St.
15.	Houston		15.	Houston (13)		15.	Oklahoma
16.	Pitt		16.	Miami (16)		16.	VaTech
17.	Ohio St.		17.	Utah (17)		17.	Wisconsin
18.	Miami		18.	Oklahoma (20)		18.	Miami
19.	Utah		19.	Arizona (21)		19.	Arizona
20.	W. Virginia		20.	Okla St. (18)		20.	Houston
21.	S. Carolina		21.	Notre Dame (19)		21.	Notre Dame
22.	Oklahoma		22.	BYU (25)		22.	S. Florida
23.	Arizona		23.	VaTech (22)		23.	W. Virginia
24.	Ole Miss		24.	Cal (24)		24.	Okla St.
25.	Notre Dame		25.	Texas Tech (29)		25.	Cal
26.	BYU		26.	Wisconsin (24)		26.	Rutgers
27.	C. Michigan		27.	Clemson (27)
28.	Cal		28.	UNC (NR)
29.	Texas Tech		29.	S. Florida (26)
30.	Wisconsin		30.	W. Virginia (30)
31.	Navy		31.	Auburn (28)
32.	Kansas		32.	S. Carolina (37)
33.	Clemson		33.	Rutgers (31)

games between top 25 teams next week:

LSU at 'bama
Ohio St. at Penn St.


other losable games for top 25 teams:

UConn at Cincy
Wake Forest at GA Tech
Navy at Notre Dame
Oregon St. at Cal
Oklahoma at Nebraska


other random thoughts:

-Oregon has played too well the last few weeks to keep them out of the top ten, and maybe even the top five.  But when Brent Musberger asked when we might start thinking about them as a possible BCS title game contender, there's an easy answer: when Boise State loses.  They're playing as well as anybody in the country right now, but they were less than stellar the first three weeks of the season.  If you look at their schedule, you'll see these results:

week 1: lost to Boise St. while looking out of sorts all game and going the entire first half without a first down
week 2: barely scraped by Purdue -- a team that lost to Northern Illinois the following week -- at home, a game in which they were outgained by over 100 yards
week 3: narrowly beat Utah at home in a game in which Masoli was 4-16 for 95 yards passing

Since then, they've been a different team (though Masoli's still not a great passer).  So the question becomes: do we base Oregon's ranking on their play in October, or their play for the entire season?  I think the answer is the latter -- which means that, at the very least, we cannot rank them ahead of Boise St. right now, regardless of what Kirk Herbstreit says.  update: Last week, two people (one of them being Herbstreit) ranked Oregon above Boise St.  This week, eight people did (not including Herbstreit, who apparently didn't vote this week).

-With VaTech losing and Miami and GA Tech both trailing during the second half, it was almost a nightmare week for ACC boosters.  I think it's pretty unanimous that the Big East is the weakest BCS conference, but they'll have more top 15 teams when the next poll is released than will the ACC (2- Cincy and Pitt vs. 1-GA Tech).  5 out of 8 Big East teams have 2 losses or fewer, while that's only true of 2 out of 12 ACC teams.  That doesn't mean that the former is stronger than the latter (it doesn't take schedule strength, for one, into account), but it sure is interesting.

-The bottom of the top 25 is once again complete chaos.  I see about 16 teams that look pretty good, and then every team after that has significant weaknesses and/or lacks wins over good teams.  I don't know who's best, for example, between Arizona, Notre Dame, and Utah -- but I do know they've given me little reason to think that they're elite teams.

-update:  now that the standings are out, I'm picking Houston as the most overrated team (now that their wins against OK St. and Texas Tech look less impressive, their loss against UTEP even worse, and they're barely squeaking by teams like Southern Miss) and UNC as the most underrated team (how they failed to get a vote after beating VaTech on the road is beyond me).  I'd pick Oklahoma State as the most likely to finish the season ranked lower than they are right now and Wisonsin, VaTech, and Oklahoma as the most likely to finish higher (not very adventurous on the latter two, I know).