What do voters look for?

Desmond Howard, on the Saturday morning ESPN college football show, explained that the reason the Notre Dame Fighting Irish weren't higher in the polls - and were slipping - was because they weren't racking up any style points. He pointed to their offensive numbers being down as the reason they weren't as stylish to voters. Howard was a good college football player. In fact, he was a Heisman trophy winner at Michigan. However, it's not all about the offense. At least I don't think it should be.

"Style points" should be marginally important because there aren't many losses accumulated at the top of the rankings. How do you decide who the best one-loss team is? Strength of schedule and associated "style points," right? But, you don't have to rack up tons of offense or huge margins of victory to make yourself look good. What you have to do is control the game. This is where Desmond Howard was off-base.

Last weekend, my neighbor was out-of-town so he gave me his tickets for the CU v. OU game. Oklahoma won 24-3, but only led 10-0 until the start of the 4th quarter. But, that 10 point lead was dominant because, until the CU scoring drive in the 4th quarter, CU had 6 yards passing on one completion. When you factor in the 2.5 yards per rush the Buffs were racking up, it becomes apparent that CU wasn't doing much offensively. In fact, Colorado gained just 5 first downs the entire game and finished with 113 total yards. The OU offense was conservative playing against the wind in the 2nd and 3rd quarters because they could be. It was a dominant OU performance because the Sooners controlled the game and it was never in doubt. It's similar to the Jacksonville Jaguars' dominating MNF performance against the Pittsburgh Steelers earlier this year. The margin of victory doesn't capture the control one team had.

Notre Dame may have slipped a little because they needed a long TD pass - helped by some iffy UCLA defense - to pull out a last-minute victory a week ago. And, it wasn't the first such victory. Michigan State choked away a lead against the Irish. And, the Irish were in peril in their opener against Georgia Tech pretty much the entire game.

Along the same lines, why is USC still in the top 10? It's been more than a month since the Trojans last beat a team by more than 7, and they weren't in the difficult part of the schedule. Since beating Arizona 20-3, they've narrowly defeated Washington State, Washington and Arizona State and lost to Oregon State. USC beat one-loss Arkansas early in the season, but that was before Mitch Mustain learned how to be a functional college QB as a freshman. Plus, the Razorbacks may just be a one-trick pony. Arkansas ambushed a distracted Auburn team the week before the Tigers were set to match up with the Florida Gators. I won't be surprised if both LSU and Tennessee knock off the Hogs later this year. The other USC win was 28-10 at home against Nebraska. Whose Huskers have knocked off some of the elite teams in college football this year: LA Tech, Nicholls State, Troy, Kansas, Kansas State and Iowa State. Wow. Impressive. That's why it's important to look at the "body of work" instead of just the results and the names.

And, I'm still trying to figure out what voters actually look for.