Games Watched: All Big Ten games except OSU-YSU, Wisconsin-Akron, and Indiana-WKU (Thank you, BTN!). I have OSU on the DVR so I’ll watch that before my final ballot on Wednesday. I also saw Oregon-Washington, some of Clemson-Bama, Wake-Baylor, Stanford-Oregon State, Most of South Carolina-NC State, and snippets of a few other games. I also have a couple more on the DVR at home that I’ll probably spend Labor Day watching.

Notes: I’m not married to this order, so help me out if there’s something I missed or something you disagree with. USC moved up beause of a solid win over a program with a pulse – or at least 1-A standing. The same can be said for the other USC, except their opponent was expected to be much better.

Most teams that moved up did so on the basis of attrition ahead of them more than anything. Missouri moved down because I think Illinois’ offensive success was based more on a crappy Tigers defense than a radically improved Juice Williams. By the same token, Illinois moved down because a strong defense was supposed to carry them to a certain extent this year – eh, not so much.

Penn Sate sold me on the Spread HD so far. I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt against a good team before my skepticism holds me back on them. Texas Tech didn’t take too much of a hit despite an uninspiring win against Eastern Washington because I think early-season cobwebs were to blame for most of their 7,387 penalty yards, and they’ll come around quickly.