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SB Nation Blog Poll Draft: Oklahoma Back In The Top Spot

By Jeremy Mauss

Here is our collaboration of the SB Nation Blog Poll and we include some extra analysis this week. 

Jacob: I swapped spots in regards to Oklahoma State and Texas A&M from last week simply because Oklahoma State's offense has looked unstoppable. As long as the defense can get even just 3-4 stops, Oklahoma State could take over the game. The good news for the Cowboys is that their defense is much better than that, Oklahoma State has a shot at beating a lot of great teams this season.

South Carolina dropped four spots in my poll for squeaking by Navy by only 3 points. Yes, it's Navy, and Navy has been pretty good in recent seasons, but a shaky performance by the offense has me believing that when South Carolina runs into Florida and pretty much any opponent from the SEC West, the offense will sputter and the Gamecocks won't
prove their pre-season ranking right.

Florida State dropped 9 spots in my poll because they showed that the offense definitely had some issues. E.J. Manuel definitely isn't as good as was advertised and that means that the offense isn't as good as was advertised for FSU. The teams above them quite simply looked like more complete teams, with offenses that can score easily and defense that have played well to this point.

TCU dropped behind Nebraska due to the way they played against ULM. The final score doesn't show it, but the defense certainly struggled in the first half and a couple of turnovers kept the Warhawks in the game. TCU ended up taking business, but definitely didn't look as good as Nebraska, who ran away from Washington in the second half.

I accidentally left West Virginia off of my ballot last week and I fixed that this week. I also moved the Mountaineers up from where I would have had them. This was due to Geno Smith looking like he had fully grasped Dana Holgorsen's offense against Maryland. That could be scary with Smith's athleticism.

Arizona State didn't fall too far this week because it was a close game between them and Illinois, who is a much better football team than some people think, well at least in my opinion.

Texas made it into my ballot for the first time for having demolished UCLA at the Rose Bowl and the offense looking very good under Case McCoy, who finally took over for stagnant quarterback Garrett Gilbert.

Clemson moves in for what should be obvious reasons. They weathered the storm against Auburn when down 14-0 and showed resiliency by coming back in dominating fashion from that point on to win 38-24.

Michigan State drops pretty far for their terrible performance at Notre Dame, but I think it was more of the Spartans running into a team motivated to get their first victory after two tough losses than just a bad showing by Michigan State, and this team still is Top 25 worthy.

Miami (FL) makes it into the poll, but at the bottom of it. The Hurricanes certainly looked much better with many players returning, including starting quarterback Jacory Harris, but it was against Ohio State, who was in my opinion very over-hyped.

Utah takes the final spot for having destroyed a good BYU defense and holding the BYU running game to only 11 yards. The Utes also forced six fumbles and looked dominant over a good BYU squad.

Ballots after the jump.

Here are our individual ballots:

 

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