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This week's BlogPoll, brought to you by explosions

By Kevan Lee
Thomas Campbell-US PRESSWIRE

Last week's BlogPoll had Boise State at No. 3 in the country thanks to the Broncos being America's most traveled team and my using road trip miles as a tiebreaker. That likely made people doubt my credibility and capacity for rational thought, so they'll be happy to know that this week, the Broncos are down 17 spots to No. 20. Most of that can be blamed on Boise State taking a bye and missing out on a W when other teams were W'ing without them. I also used an offensive football tiebreaker this week, so that didn't help out either.

Here's a recap of my BlogPoll methodology.

My Top 25 operates under the assumption that all FBS football teams are equal because, if they weren't, the NCAA obviously wouldn't group them all into the same classification. That would just make no sense.

Therefore, to choose the best from the FBS, I am building my BlogPoll based on one very big factor: Wins over fellow FBS teams. When ties happen within my standings (and they happen A LOT), I will do the tie-breaking based on a new stat every week, like, say, points allowed or Dairy Queens per capita. You know, real scientific stuff.

This week's tie-breaking method is explosive plays, defined by me as any run or pass play 20 yards or more. The complete list is available on cfbstats.com, and in the case of ties within the ties, I went with plays of 30 yards or more as the next tiebreaker.

Notable:

  • The most explosive team in America is Texas A&M (90 explosive plays).
  • The least explosive team in America is Massachusetts (29 plays).
  • For what it's worth, the second-least explosive team is Hawaii (32 plays). The Norm Chow Era, everyone!
  • Boise State ranks No. 104 in the country in 20+-yard plays. For reference, last year's Kellen Moore offense ranked No. 27.
  • Regarding the main statistic used to create my Top 25 - wins over fellow FBS teams, there are now only four schools who are Kevan Winless on the year. The remaining non-winners are Akron, Kansas, New Mexico State, and Southern Miss. Of those, only Southern Miss has both no FBS wins and no real wins.

The complete Top 25 table is below.

Team Total Wins FCS Wins Real Wins Explosive Plays
1 Notre Dame 12 12 59
2 Ohio State 12 12 53
3 Oregon 11 1 10 76
4 Georgia 11 1 10 75
5 Northern Illinois 11 1 10 63
6 Kent State 11 1 10 63
7 Alabama 11 1 10 61
8 Florida 11 1 10 50
9 Stanford 10 10 42
10 Clemson 10 1 9 82
11 Louisiana Tech 9 9 77
12 San Jose St 10 1 9 72
13 Nebraska 10 1 9 70
14 UCLA 9 9 67
15 Utah State 10 1 9 64
16 UCF 9 9 58
17 South Carolina 10 1 9 58
18 LSU 10 1 9 57
19 Kansas State 10 1 9 54
20 Boise State 9 9 41
21 Ball State 9 9 39
22 Texas A&M 10 2 8 90
23 Fresno State 9 1 8 73
24 Florida State 10 2 8 69
25 Tulsa 9 1 8 65
26 Toledo 9 1 8 61
27 Michigan 8 8 59
28 Louisiana-Monroe 8 8 56
29 Oregon State 8 8 55
30 San Diego State 9 1 8 54
31 Penn State 8 8 53
32 Louisville 9 1 8 51
33 Oklahoma 9 1 8 51
34 Texas 8 8 50
35 Middle Tenn 8 8 48
36 Northwestern 9 1 8 45
37 Rutgers 9 1 8 37

Got a suggestion for a tie-breaking procedure? I'm all ears.

Got a beef with the way I do my polling? Beef away in the comments.

Got some ways to make this Top 25 better? Please help. I'm easily swayed.