This week’s blogpoll is brought to you by hangovers. Kids, we’re gonna lecture you here for a second with a sad fact: drinking after thirty is not fun, and you know this is true because we began with “hey kids,” which is kind of condescending but fuck that THE HEAD IT HURTS AND TO HELL IF YOU DO–

Sorry. Apologies. It’s just…we’re so…emotional today. Because we’re hungover and 32.

Drinking before thirty is a grand adventure, filled with surprises and intrigue. Who’s that guy drinking on my tab? Does he really need that eyepatch? Hey, you’re the only guy in a bar full of black dudes! (Who all have eyepatches.) You really boxed a kangaroo once? Yes, my pants did disappear quite a while ago. Say, is that a real ultralight? Sure, I can fly one.

Look! A place that serves eggs at four in the morning! (Repeat; rinse vomit out of hair; repeat.)

Sometimes, drinking still retains its halcyon glow, its moments of beauty. Anthony Bourdain has described that moment when you should be asleep, an undefined time between 11:00 p.m. and 1:00 a.m. when your work is done but you’re not, and you’re probably three drinks into the evening, and a song comes on and sets everything perfectly well on its axis. It’s still a wondrous moment.

This particularly evil egg sac of hangover around the eyes and forebrow right now? The lingering feeling of doom? This is not one of those wondrous moments. This is called a hangover you wouldn’t suffer before the age of 30, a Lucky Jim special from a shockingly small number of drinks that Kingsley Amis can only properly describe:

“He stood brooding by his bed…The light did him harm, but not as much as looking at things did; he resolved, having done it once, never to move his eyeballs again. A dusty thudding in his head made the scene before him beat like a pulse. His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum. During the night, too, he’d somehow been on a cross-country run and then been expertly beaten up by secret police. He felt bad.”

To repeat: don’t drink after 30. It’s not a good idea and hurt will head it your. Secret police will be waiting for you in the morning, and you won’t like what they do to you.

And now, hangover lecture concluded, here is the blogpoll draft. It’s gibberish as usual, but we have an excuse, and it starts with our idiot attorney deciding it was a good idea to start drinking Sidecars, which as far as we know is a drink so ancient and mysterious Joe Paterno associates it with Freemasonry and the Shanghai Vegetarian underworld of the 1910s.

Voila:

Rank Team Delta
1 Oklahoma —
2 Alabama —
3 Penn State —
4 Missouri 2
5 Texas —
6 LSU 2
7 Brigham Young 1
8 Texas Tech 9
9 Utah 2
10 Southern Cal —
11 Vanderbilt 2
12 Georgia 3
13 Florida 2
14 Oklahoma State 2
15 Ohio State 4
16 Northwestern 5
17 Kansas 3
18 Boise State 6
19 South Florida 12
20 Michigan State 2
21 Wisconsin 3
22 Virginia Tech 1
23 Ball State 2
24 Tulsa 2
25 Connecticut 5

Dropped Out: Auburn (#12).

Blogpoll: Now in Lundquist-vision! The Blogpoll is now Verne-enated, an official associate of CBS Sports, who’s visionary, forward-thinking, and fond of thinking of new ways to enrage college football fans into discussion with random, unscientific polling. This means that we’re kind of metaphorically tied to Dennis Dodd, too, and it is not half as kinky as we hoped it would be.

LSU down only because they didn’t play, and Missouri and Texas did. We’re still waiting for Missouri’s defense to catch fire and drag the team under, but the remaining schedule is so weak the likelihood of that happening is minimal to nil.

The rest: Texas Tech is too high, likely, but they looked thuggish against K-State, which is easy because the Wildcats turn are Halle Berry, and turn everyone they pair with into abusive, cruel boyfriends. Georgia takes three spots down due to a loss to the bye week. In order to prevent Bulldog fans from getting to upset:

Look heerz ur noshawn a-leepin!

And yes more rest: Wisconsin is on the verge of being de-ranked for being generally sluggish and unimpressive. (Like, Sidecar hangover sluggish.) Probably still undervaluing Kansas. A morass at the bottom, but it usually is…and why not give Tulsa daps? Also, no Notre Dame at 4-1 because, like everyone else in the known universe, we won’t trust them until they beat someone of substance, and with the schedule they have that is dubious, dubious stuff indeed.

It says much how degraded the absolute value of the Irish football brand has become when voters–ourselves included–are willing to give a fluffy undefeated record for Northwestern far more credit that a one-loss ND tally in week six. Bowl losses add up in unexpected ways. Much like Sidecars * and red wine JESUS ARE WE A FIFTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL?

In conclusion: If you turn 30, don’t drink unless you like the demoncock of hangovers doing unspeakable things to you in the harsh light of day. Right now we feel like Nebraska’s defense on Saturday night, and the only one to spit on is ourselves.

*They call it a Sidecar because, in the event of an accident, you are ejected from the vehicle and killed.