This "poll" seems like a lot of polls created wherein it isn't obvious just what the respondents are really supposed to be rating. I feel that some folks are answering different questions. Just to be controversial, if I had to rate our opponents on a generic "who's the best team?" basis, I'd go:[you don't have to agree, this is just "my turn"] ....
1). USC
2). Stanford
3). MSU
4). Maryland
5). USF
6). Pitt
7). Michigan
8). Air Force
9). Boston College
10). Navy
11). Purdue
12). Wake Forest.
If I was trying to guess which games would end up being our toughest fights [physical battles], I'd go:
1). USC
2). MSU
3). Pitt
4). BC
5). Michigan
6). Maryland
7). Stanford
8). USF
9). Air Force
10). Navy
11). Purdue
12). Wake Forest.
If I was going to rate which games were most important to win, I'd go:
1). USC ["We're BAAAACK!!"]
2). Michigan ["We're BAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!"]
3). USF ["Watch out world, here we come!!"]
4). Navy [" The nonsense is OVER!!"]
5). MSU ["We're the tough guys on THIS block!!"]
6). Stanford ["Hey!! We're REALLY good!!"]
7). Wake Forest ["No embarrassments this year!"]
8). Purdue { see above}
9). Boston College ["tough fight guys, but we're King again"]
10). Pitt ["Why can't you ba$tards just lie down and get your whipping?"]
11). Maryland [...dangerous bunch of dudes who are going to beat some folks in the ACC... we'd recover from this slip if it happened]
12). Air Force [ if it happened everyone would credit the hero-AFers and we had some weird day off].
Note each list has different criteria. The first is simple excellence. The second is physicality plus rivalry. The third is national psychology. I'm not sure which one is being asked for.
