Wow. I thought I only missed 1 week. Sorry for the long delay in updates. Congratulations to stevenra and Brandon for winning Week 8 Pick ‘Em and goodint37 for winning week 7 Pick ‘Em and Abrion and SOONERFLASH for winning Week 6 Pick ‘Em. For the 2009 season Pick ‘Em, since the last update, SOONERFLASH is fading down the stretch and lost his 1-point lead and now 4 points behind stevenra. In third place, 8 points back is tsberry56. Proving you don’t have to play every week to be competitive (but you can’t miss much!) are dahustla and PSUSyr5 who both missed a week and have more points or tied to someone who has played every week.

Remember, point values tend to increase towards the end of the season making large jumps possible. The Bowl season is worth a lot of points and could be the final shake-up.

The top 6 remain unchanged from last week. Is this a sign of stability in the poll? Oklahoma took the largest tumble but remained in the poll. Houston, Georgia, Michigan and California weren’t so lucky and were dropped and replaced with Auburn, Georgia Tech, Missouri and Wisconsin.

We gained one new official pollster but lost one due to not submitting a ballot.

The Pick ‘Em game has been scored for Week 5 and congratulations goes to knoxvillevolntr and sedwards468 for winning a very difficult week. However, SOONERFLASH’s 4-point lead has now dwindled to just 1 point over a three-way tie for second place for the season.

The top 3 remain the same. The biggest movers were Iowa up 11 spots to #12, and picking up a first place vote. Penn State, Miami, Ole Miss and Cal all fell hard this week. Oregon jumps back in the polls at #14 and South Florida and Nebraska are also new this week, replacing North Carolina, Florida State and Pittsburgh.

We also gained 8 new official pollsters, through a heavy week of discussion not only about the applicant’s polls, but again what to look for. Welcome to all the new OPs.

Congratulations to Brandon for winning Week 4. This was a tough week to pick as Brandon missed 5 (of 18) games to pull out the win over two others just one point behind for second place.

For the season, SOONERFLASH has opened up his lead to 4 points over a three-way tie for second place. But it’s still a long season as the top 10 are seperated by just 10 points, and a few off weeks could completely change things.

Please vote on the following applications for official pollster status: vetonoshake, dbrannen93, & bwbob1…. and joshuahouston.

The 2009 Week 3 poll is now final. Florida and Texas remain the 1-2 punch. With USC dropping from the top 10, a lot of teams moved up a slot. The biggest movers this week were Miami moving up 10 spots to #10 and BYU moving down 11 slots to #18. Five new teams entered the poll this week: Florida State, Kansas, Iowa, Pittsburgh and Michigan causing these five teams to be dropped: Utah, Georgia Tech, Nebraska, Texas Tech and Oregon State, but all are in the still receiving votes section. Sadly, we lost 1 official pollster for failing to submit a ballot, but we gained 4 new official pollsters.

An interesting discussion occurred this week about whether it’s okay to copy polls, or computer rankings or just in general. The general feeling seemed to be “Why would you bother?” However, no one seemed to think it was terribly bad, and there’s still only 2 weeks for the pollster that appears to have copied a computer ranking, which could be coincidental. More feedback and ideas and your opinion are always welcome. As is, there isn’t a formal challenge to the pollster just some confusion to his rankings and what’s he’s said on how he ranks his teams.

sedwards468 has applied to be an official pollster. Please go vote on his application.

NVWolfpack has applied to be an official pollster. Please go vote on his application.

Abrion has applied to become an official pollster. Please go vote on his application.