Polls gone wild: The trick is to avoid peaking too early

Schools passed each other in the polls Sunday like ascending and descending mountain climbers.

You imagined Texas saying to Kentucky: “Be careful up there, it’s treacherous.”

Or, West Virginia to social climber Boston College: “We left some canned goods for you at Base Camp 5.”

The weekend was so information-craving we almost would have paid to read exclusive insider information provided by Texas A&M; Coach Dennis Franchione.

Not that anything like that could ever happen.

In Las Vegas, they rotate dealers in to reshuffle the decks.

In college football, they rotated in Friday and Saturday.

Nine of the 25 schools in last week’s Associated Press poll lost, leaving the national title race in a 12-egg scramble.

Is everyone paying attention out there?

“I hope so,” California tailback Justin Forsett said after the No. 6 Bears held on to beat No. 11 Oregon in Eugene. “You can never tell whether people are watching us on the East Coast. But I hope they saw this one.”

Some did.

Cal moved to No. 3 Sunday in all three major indexes -- AP, USA Today coaches’ and Harris -- setting up this juicy possibility:

If Florida defeats Louisiana State this week in Baton Rouge, and USC beats Stanford at the Coliseum, USC and Cal would be No. 1 and No. 2 next Sunday.

And someone would have to peel Pacific 10 Commissioner Tom Hansen off his ceiling in Walnut Creek.

Care to pull out of the Bowl Championship Series now?

Pollsters obviously had a tough time sorting Sunday out. One AP voter said it took him nearly two hours to complete his ballot.

Louisiana State, which pillaged its way to a 10-9 halftime lead against Tulane, jumped ahead of USC into the No. 1 spot in the AP poll.

Why not? USC played as poorly as a team can and still get out of Washington with a win. Pete Carroll ought to condemn the game tape to a fiery death in Heritage Hell.

But at least USC won, which is more than you can say for formerly No. 3 Oklahoma, No. 4 Florida, No. 5 West Virginia, No. 7 Texas, No. 10 Rutgers, No. 11 Oregon, No. 13 Clemson, No. 21 Penn State and No. 22 Alabama.

USC stayed No. 1 and ahead of LSU in the more important Harris and coaches’ polls. Those are the indexes used in the can’t-get-here-soon-enough BCS standings, which debut in two weeks. The AP is no longer part of the BCS but can independently crown (ask USC) its own champion.

This weekend’s fallout left a grab bag of contenders and suspects.

Wisconsin at No. 5?

The school that almost lost to Nevada Las Vegas and then gave up 31 points to the Citadel?

Expected pollster response: “We had to put Wisconsin somewhere.”

We’ll give No. 6 South Florida its preposterous props because the Bulls knocked off No. 5 West Virginia and this year beat Auburn at Auburn. And Auburn just beat Florida.

How about Boston College, though, at No. 7 and Kentucky at No. 8?

Speaking on behalf of the assistant night manager here, we demand to know how these two schools sneaked into the BCS theater.

We think, though, the following security measures will set things right:

Wisconsin still has to play at Penn State and Ohio State, with Michigan at home on Nov. 11.

Kentucky’s top-10 hallucination could wear off as soon as Thursday at South Carolina. After that, the Wildcats play back to back against LSU and Florida.

If Kentucky wins those three games, well, go ahead and make Rich Brooks governor.

Boston College has to be the first team in history to move up five spots, from No. 12 to No. 7, after beating a Division I-AA team at home by 10 points.

Sometimes it just pays to be standing on a street corner.

The streaming Eagles, though, still have to get past Virginia Tech, Florida State and Clemson before Thanksgiving.

The bottom line for everyone amid all this top-to-bottom craziness is to stay calm and keep poll hope alive.

Oklahoma dropped only seven spots to No. 10 after blowing a 24-7 lead at Colorado, a school that only last year lost its opener to Montana State.

Shoot, in 2004, Oklahoma got blown out in its last game and still made the BCS championship game.

And Florida has not gone on to win a national title after losing to Auburn in the regular season since . . . last year.

The real poll crime perpetrated Sunday was against Oregon, which undeservedly dropped from No. 11 to No. 14 after losing to No. 6 Cal by about the nose of a football.

Voters were obviously paying proper attention to Justin Forsett’s Golden Bears -- but not enough to Dennis Dixon’s Ducks.

Weekend wrap

The dumbest move in football is now, officially, a player trying to extend the ball over the plane of the goal line to score a touchdown.

This maneuver has already cost three schools this year.

Fresno State lost in overtime at Texas A&M; on Sept. 8 when receiver Marlon Moore fumbled through the end zone for a touchback only inches from the game-winning touchdown.

A week later, UCLA receiver Marcus Everett was streaking toward a third-quarter score that would have cut Utah’s lead to 17-13 when he had the ball knocked through the end zone by Utes defender Robert Johnson.

You could call it a momentum swing, as Utah took the ball and went 80 yards to make it 24-6, before ultimately making it 44-6.

Saturday, in Eugene, Oregon was denied the probable tying touchdown when Ducks receiver Cameron Colvin had the ball knocked lose by Cal’s Marcus Ezeff as Colvin stretched for the goal line.

Where does Oregon go from here? The Ducks have a history of fading after fast starts. In 2002 they finished 7-6 after a 6-0 start, a year later they started 4-0 but ended up 8-5 and last year they finished 7-6 after starting 4-0.

Rarefied Cal air. This is the first time the Bears have been ranked No. 3 since October 1953. Cal was No. 1 in October 1951 before it lost to No. 11 USC in Berkeley. The highest Cal has ever finished in the AP poll was No. 2, in 1937.

--

chris.dufresne@latimes.com

--

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Play it forward

1Notre Dame visits the Rose Bowl for the first time since Jan. 1, 1925. Last time it was Stanford; this time it’s UCLA. Last time it was Knute; this time it’s Knuts. Last time it was the Four Horsemen; this time it’s the Clydesdales.

2Florida at Louisiana State. It would have been off the charts had Florida not lost to Auburn, but this throw-down still has major national implications. A win puts Florida back in the chase with a chance the teams could meet again in the Southeastern Conference title game.

3Stanford plays at USC, and you know what that’s all about. Last spring, first-year Stanford Coach Jim Harbaugh predicted this would be Pete Carroll’s last season at USC. Some suspect Carroll is going to make Harbaugh wish it was his last year at Stanford.

4Texas vs. Oklahoma at the Cotton Bowl was setting up to be a battle of undefeated top-10 teams. With both schools losing last weekend, however, the Red River Rivalry has been downgraded from great to Texas State “Fair.”

5Nebraska at Missouri. Everyone knows the power in the Big 12 Conference is in the . . . North Division? With South Division superpowers Oklahoma and Texas suffering setback losses to North Division teams last weekend, the Big 12 teeter-totter just tilted back toward Canada.

-- Chris Dufresne