Dear Stranko,
We showed you ours, and you’ve shown us yours. Stranko, we’re now in the horse-trading stage of constructing our poll. We drop two teams, Ohio State and Utah, while adding Oklahoma and, at the risk of being labeled homers, Florida. Averaging most of the common threads led to the order, unless otherwise stated. Here’s my revised proposal:

1. USC. No disagreement here.
2. Virginia Tech. The team on both our top 10s with the highest ranking in each. Why not? They’re as good as anyone on the list with few obvious weaknesses. When people ask us why, we’ll just type the name “Vick” over and over again until they start slobbering and stop questioning our wisdom.
3. Texas Again, we concur on their overall strength. On defense, they’re going to dismantle people under Chizik’s new schemes. we can concur they’re a better overall team than Tennessee-look at the last four games of the regular season for Tennessee, btw, their pass defense got porous quick-so they can sit nicely here.
4. Tennessee. Sliding in right behind Texas due to bad pass D. We had them at 2, you’ve got them at 7…it’s a nice compromise. Other than that, an typically hulking crew with a load of potential, like all of Fulmer’s teams.
5. Michigan. You’ve got them at nine, which seems too weak for a crew as consistent as this current Wolverines team. The big question mark is defense, but with Iowa’s struggles in the run game, we can’t seriously put them in the top ten, no matter how good a coach Ferentz may be.
6. Oklahoma. Too much rebuilding to put them ahead of any of the previous teams, but too good to put any further down. We missed on them completely in our top ten but somehow included Utah sans Alex smith and Urban Meyer. Drop them and put Oklahoma here, somewhat under the radar where they seem to be more comfortable.
7. Louisville. Too good on offense and moving into the Big East. Improved on defense. Let’s get bullish on their chances of giving the BCS a great big UFIA in the fall.
8. Florida. That’s as high as we can rationally allow Florida to be ranked coming in, given the adjustments to the offense and the ongoing process of shaking the Zookery out of this crew. Look at the seven teams ranked higher. Who would they replace in terms of preseason potential? If this weren’t the first season, we’d buy heavy. As it stands, we can’t jump head-first into the Meyer pool just yet.
9. Boise State. Win at Athens. Win at Athens. Win at Athens. That’s everything to this team right now, and should be. People are visual learners. They need to see this team dismantle a team on their home field in front of a national audience to believe.
10. Miami. If Kyle Wright plays within his own limits, the Canes will be surprisingly good, even in the new Kumite-style ACC.
Sincerely,

Orson