THINKS THE EAGLES STOLE ONE
(With a correction from the original version.)
Every once in a while I wonder whether anyone actually reads this blog. This weekend really made me think about it.
First, I was out Saturday night and some guy came up to me and said he recognized me and really likes the blog. I don't remember his name, but whoever you were, thanks.
Second, I wonder if my interview with Mike Hlas had some strange effect on college football karma. Iowa lost at home to Northwestern, and Temple went from one vote in last week's AP poll to seven in the ranking that came out tonight.
The Owls also got eight votes in the coaches' poll and 24 in the Harris poll. It's worth noting, though, that the Harris poll has 114 voters compared to the AP poll's 60 voters and the coaches' poll's 59 voters.
Mike Kern of the Daily News is a voter in the Harris poll. The Philadelphia area has no representatives in the AP poll, and as I mentioned last week Temple coach Al Golden votes in the coaches' poll.
There is a bug in the website that lists AP voters' ballots, so I was only able to confirm five of the writers who voted for Temple. But since there were only two missing, I think we can infer that those two also included the Owls.
The writers were:
- Scott Wolf, Los Angeles Daily News
- Ray Ratto, San Francisco Chronicle
- Mike Hlas, Cedar Rapids Gazette (Iowa)
- Keith Sargeant, Home News Tribune (Middlesex County, N.J., and other Gannett papers in the state)
- Ray Fittipaldo, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Wolf and Sargeant ranked the Owls 24th; all the others ranked them 25th. The two 24th-place votes are worth two points each and the three 25th-place votes are worth one point, which is how Temple got seven points total.
(CORRECTION: I had originally written that I couldn't figure out how the Owls got to seven points. Commenter joeags pointed out where I screwed up, and I thank him for that.)
I found it quite interesting that 11 voters put Navy on their ballots, but not Temple. That surely has something to do with the Midshipmen's win at Notre Dame yesterday.
But as was noted by a bunch of people, the transitive theory is very much in play for Temple right now. The Owls beat Navy, which beat Notre Dame, which beat Washington, which beat USC.
Well, you can dream.
These are the voters who had Navy but not Temple on their ballots. Be polite to them, okay?
- Jay G. Tate, Montgomery Advertiser (Alabama)
- Jon Wilner, San Jose Mercury-News
- Jake Schaller, Colorado Springs Gazette
- Brett McMurphy, AOL Fanhouse (based in Tampa, Florida)
- John Davis, Oxford Eagle (Mississippi)
- Dave Matter, Columbia Daily Tribune (Missouri)
- Sal Interdonato, Times Herald-Record (Middletown, N.Y.)
- Jeff Gravley, WRAL-TV (Raleigh, N.C.)
- Kirk Herbstreit, ESPN and WBNS-AM (Columbus, Ohio)
- Mike Finger, San Antonio Express-News
- Bob Condotta, Seattle Times
