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I haven’t been keeping up with my Calix Cari polls this year for collage football. But now that the regular season has ended, I have found time to produce one. The events of this season have been rather unpredictable. Of course by the end of the season there were few surprises. Auburn appeared out of nowhere to become #1 on the strength of a once-in-a-decade player who fit perfectly into their offensive system. (Yay, for the booster who had cash to spare in this economy. We will see if their season stands the test of time.) But in my calculation Auburn is only #3, behind Oregon and ¡Stanford! (I still think Harbaugh would make a smooth transition into the coach’s chair at UGA but wouldn’t be there long. It’s good that Richt was retained.)

It appears my algorithm likes the Pac-10 over the SEC, and Auburn lost ground because of its tight victories, early in the season.

The announcement is a bit late, but after beating Texas, Bama has won the 2009 Calix Cari.

See below for the complete results of 2009.

With the conference championship games complete my Calix Cari rankings once again agree with the pollsters: its Texas versus Alabama for the title.

Surprisingly, despite Tebow crying after visiting the wood-shed in Atlanta Florida still ranks #3, ahead of undefeated teams TCU, Cincinnati, and Boise State. Two loss Oregon comes in at #4, based on its strong showings against Cal, USC, Arizona, and Oregon State. Boise State produced the second best victory of the year (against Oregon) but couldn’t overcome a week conference schedule to rise higher than #9.

The Pac-10 placed 6 teams in the top 25, followed by Big 12 at 4, SEC, Big East, ACC, and Big 10 at 3, MWC at 2, and WAC at 1. Clearly the Pac-10’s 8-4 logjam was seen more highly than the SEC’s 7-5 logjam.

It’s be a few weeks since I’ve calculated my rankings for collage football, but with Uga VII passing away, I figure I’d post something in honor of him.

Today sucks. Uga VII has died.

This is my first poll of the season, and Alabama is ranked #1, followed by Iowa and Florida. What’s interesting is that a quick look through the results reveals that Boise State’s victory of Oregon is considered the best win of any team of the year.

Air New Zealand’s new safety video: Bare essentials of safety from Air New Zealand. (If you are not a fan of realistic body painting, you shouldn’t view the videos.)

And their new ad:

Tauntaun Sleeping Bag

I guess that would make up for the Ewok costume that I had when I was young. It was made out of brown carpet by my mom and was awesome. When I got older, I learned that True Fans™ despised Ewoks. I still like Ewoks.

Looking for something to do? I recommend heading over to Hulu and checking out Death Note, an amazing anime series involving power over life and death. It is an amazing cat and mouse game between a police dective, L, and Kira, a vigilantle who executes criminals by writing their names in his God-of-Death notebook.

It may seem like a simple premise, but the plot is very intricate as both L and Kira develop plans to defeat the other by predicting each others moves. In nearly every case, they know exactly what the other will do, meaning that their plans must be elaborate. Its like cops-and-robbers played on a chess board crafted by the Grim Reaper. Their creativity and cunning are astounding, and just when you think one of them has won, the other one is ready with his next move. Simply amazing.

Well the season is now over, and I can post the final, true rankings of all 726 the teams that play college football, based solely and objectively on their results and strength of schedule. As a result, Florida wins the 2008 Calix Cari.

If you are concerned about how the truth of my rankings compare to the opinions of coaches and sportswritters, I’ve posted the Calix Cari rankings along side the Coaches’ and media polls.

The regular season is over and my system has determined the two teams that will play for the national championship: Florida and Oklahoma.

The Fighting PZs come in at #708.

Texas finishes just ahead of Oklahoma and should be playing in the Big 12 championship game according to my system. Florida’s hold of the #1 spot has narrowed. The first four teams—Florida, Texas, USC, and Oklahoma—have set themselves apart from the rest. The next four—Alabama, Texas Tech, Penn State, and Utah—are also set apart from the pack. If I was organizing a four or eight team playoff I have clear evidence for who gets in and who gets left out.

So what does this system say about the mess in the Big 12 South? Well when I parse it out into head-to-head, common opponents, non-common conference opponents, and non-conference opponents we get the following rankings:

• Head-To-Head: Oklahoma, Texas, Texas-Tech
• Common: Texas, Texas-Tech, Oklahoma
• Conference: Texas, Oklahoma, Texas-Tech
• Non-Conference: Texas, Oklahoma, Texas-Tech

Texas wins three out of the four categories. Although Oklahoma beat TCU and Cincinnati, they get really punished by the system for playing Chattanooga. I think Texas ends up favored by my system for several reasons:

1. Texas beat Missouri, the best team in the Big 12 North.
2. Texas blew out Kansas, the second best team in the Big 12 North.
3. Texas’s cupcakes were obviously superior to Oklahoma’s cupcakes.
4. Texas beat Oklahoma.

Not like that is going to satisfy anyone. … Today, we go up to 11 on the front page:

Texas Tech drops, and Texas maintains a lead over Oklahoma.

Texas Tech’s blowout of Oklahoma State still wasn’t strong enough into jump them in top two. They still jumped ahead of a Bama team still looking for a second blow out victory over a top team.

Florida takes over the top spot after beating Georgia and having Texas lose. Texas still has enough quality wins to stay at #2. Alabama and Texas Tech are a bit lower because they don’t have as many huge victories as the other two. If Texas Tech can win big against one of its future opponents, they’ll move up. Alabama might need to blow out LSU or Auburn if it wants to finish the regular season at number 1.

No big upsets last week but there was some movement in the top 10 since the Week 8 poll, with Florida and Georgia gaining on other teams after blowout victories.

Here is the top 10; the full rankings are below the fold.

Now that we are three weeks into the College Football season, it’s time to rank the teams based on their quality. I used the algorithm that I described last year with the changes the end of last season.

The basic premise is that each of the teams in the dataset is positioned on a number line. Teams push and pull against the teams that they have played. The basic rules are that teams that win should push down/pull up teams that lost, and teams that lost should push up/pull down the teams that won. If a game is close, then the teams should be close on the number line, and if a game is a blowout, then teams should be far apart on the number line. The net quality of a team is derived from the quality scores that each of its opponents and games give to it.

Here is my top ten. If you drag your mouse over a team you will see a popup containing their best and worst games based on the quality that they inherit from those games.

For all the rankings, read on.

Sweet!

Tiffany and I saw The Dark Knight last night at our local, college, 5-screen, normal seating theater. We noticed around 8:30 that there was an early, midnight screening of the movie, so we decided to get tickets online and go. I didn’t expected it, but Tiffany was right; the movie was packed to the gills. We’ve never seen Mission Valley Theater fill up, not even when we went to a special screening of the last Harry Potter film. Ever seat had a butt in it—481 tickets sold, according to the co-owner who addressed the crowd and ordered the sound up to eleven. (No other movies were playing at the time.)

Now on to the movie; The Dark Knight is a great movie to see with 480 of your closest friends. It is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. Probably the best action and superhero movie yet made, better than Spider-Man, better than Iron Man, better than Batman Returns. It is probably the best movie that I’ve seen since Brokeback Mountain.

Heath Ledger created an amazingly psychotic Joker. He brought forth a twisted and dark sense of humor and mayhem that was only hinted at by Jack Nicholson and Mark Hamill. He made us both laugh and cringe. He’s going to get an Oscar nomination and has a good shot at being awarded the statue. Too bad he can’t be there to collect it.

Go out see the movie, and take 480 friends with you. You won’t regret it.