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Earlier today, The UConn Blog (whose delight at our sadness makes me sad) published this week's Big East blog power rankings. Not surprisingly, Louisville is on top, but Rutgers is starting to gain on them and even picked up a first-place vote this week.
Here's the ballot I submitted, with explanations. Each team with an SB Nation blog is also linked here, so you can visit their brand-new SB Nation United sites and see what they've done with the place.
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1. Louisville - Getting a bit concerned with the Cards being unable to play a full game. Either they get out really hot and then take their foot off the gas (Kentucky, North Carolina) or they scuff their feet for a half and then get things rolling (SCUMBAGS). If this continues, I'm going to be tempted to move them down to #2 because...
2. Rutgers - The Scarlet Knights are undefeated and have three road wins to their name, including that Thursday night victory at USF. Their resume is a little better, but the win against Arkansas was the first time that Rutgers looked the part of a top 25 team.
3. Cincinnati - The Bearcats crushed a suddenly not-terrible Pittsburgh team, and looked pretty lame against an FCS team that I'm too lazy to look up. Only two games while everyone else has at least three, but everyone below them has some major flaws or terrible losses or both.
4. Pittsburgh - I don't like having the Panthers this high because they lost to an FCS team by two touchdowns, but right now I can't make an argument for anyone below them. They must have figured something out after the Cincinnati game because they've looked exactly like I thought they would against Virginia Tech and Gardner-Webb. A dangerous foe the rest of the way, unless they yo-yo back into being terrible.
5. Syracuse* - They're 1-3 and they're pretty lame, but the bottom of this league is just dreadful. At least Syracuse has shown flashes of being a decent team, and only their loss to Minnesota is really a bad one.
6. South Florida - Because if they hadn't pulled the Nevada game out of their rear ends, their only win of the season would be against Chattanooga. Haven't played a solid game on both sides of the ball this season. Defense looks horrible. Will probably get a train run on them by Florida State. Go Bulls!
7. UConn* - I have absolutely no opinion on this team except that they are bad.
8. Temple - Still feel like I might have the Owls underrated, but their only win is against Villanova, and they were on the verge of getting destroyed by Maryland. So yeah. They stay #8 until they inevitably beat USF.
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* - I think my ballot got transposed in the scoring. I don't think I would have put UConn ahead of USF.