Week 12
- Preseason
- Week 2
- Week 3
- Week 4
- Week 5
- Week 6
- Week 7
- Week 8
- Week 9
- Week 10
- Week 11
- MBB Version
- WBB Version
This is a series I've now been doing for 11 years. The post attempts to visualize all AP Poll ballots in a single image. Additionally it sorts each AP voter by similarity to the group. Notably, this is not a measure of how "good" a voter is, just how consistent they are with the group. Especially preseason, having a diversity of opinions and ranking styles is advantageous to having a true consensus poll. Polls tend to coalesce towards each other as the season goes on.
You can now view all of the ballots this season by week by sliding through here: https://bakonyalgo.com/ap
Blair Kerkhoff was the most consistent voter this week. Michael Katz is in first on the season. Julian Mininsohn, Matt Murschel, Jerry Humphrey, and Mike Jacques were behind him in the top 5.
Koki Riley was the biggest outlier this week. Koki Riley is the biggest outlier on the season, followed by Stephen Means, Sam McKewon, Jon Wilner, and Kirk Kenney.
5 voters have a top 20 Pitt and none of them are from the ACC. I see you bitches, I see you.
knock out ND and proove your worth.
Okay fine.
Knock out ND and I'll change my Kstate flair and pull for y'all all year. I'm talking full on shit posting in y'all's favor non-stop
Who is crazier in Louisiana? Koki or the Governor?
How do you justify 6-3 Illinois and Tennessee over 8-1 Georgia Tech?
GT didnt even score any points this week
Dang you got me there
3 quality losses are worth more than one normal loss of course.
Illinois, I don't know personally
I can see Tennessee because of how Tech has squeaked by Wake, Clemson, and Colorado while Tennessee's losses are very tight to opponents far better than Tech's best win.
Georgia Tech just seems like they're benefiting from an easy schedule (which even then is a dogfight). Being only 6 spots different on SOR between a 6-3 team and one at 8-1 is a crazy bad look for Tech. If Tennessee had beaten Georgia in OT they would probably be multiple spots in SOR ahead.
I guess the question would be, is Tennessee the odds favorite here? IMO it's a yes, so it's hard for me to get really riled up if i'm viewing the two in a vacuum.
I personally wouldn't rank Tennessee ahead but I also wouldn't be shocked to see the Committee have Tennessee right behind them.
Close losses to better teams? Sure, but what’s Tennessee’s best win? Mississippi State in OT
Tech's is Duke, which is basically a wash. Especially with State having a win over ASU.
It's an odd situation where neither team has wins to justify over the other and on the flipside we're judging volume of losses versus quality of losses
I feel like if the wins are similar then I feel like you have to reward a team for not losing. Like in all these rankings there's a variability factor. All Tennessee has shown is that they can't beat good teams.
I feel like if we are doing error bands here Georgia Tech's has a lower floor and high ceiling of what the team could be. I feel like it's tough to argue for putting the guy who has had multiple cracks at good teams and failed repeatedly over someone who's more untested but has won.
Although this is all moot because Georgia Tech plays Georgia and that will basically decide Georgia Tech's season anyway.
The issue here is that they've won, but they've won poorly and their loss (NC State) is much worse than Tennessee. You could argue the opposite that you're effectively punishing someone for pushing their ceiling versus benefiting from a posh schedule
If Tech was winning convincingly then you wouldn't have as much of a debate here.
But yes, you are correct that this will likely be solved through the Georgia common opponent.
I guess I just look at it like this:
Tennessee has played 3 great teams. 2 close home losses and a comfortable defeat on the road.
So after that looking at their wins I don't find them to be more impressive than GT. They aren't winning convincingly either. They have an OT win vs Miss State, a squeaker vs a bad Arkansas team and a nice win over UK. Outside of that their only other P4 win is Syracuse which GT beat more convincingly anyway.
So to me I guess the schedule argument comes down to this. Do you prefer team A going 0-3, but two of them are close losses to great teams, or do you prefer team B going 2-1 vs mid teams?
Tennessee lacks a good enough win and dominant enough wins in general for me to think that losing games to good teams should be rewarded over actually winning games.
Koki is weighing predictive measures the most out of all the voters.
There are plenty of voters that are weighing predictive values AND resume values less than him. So the question for them is what are they basing their votes on?
SDSU got 5 total points from 2 voters this week, who appear to be victims of not staying up to watch the blowout at Hawai'i.
lol@ the Iowa voter putting Oregon up to #4 after watching Oregon out-Iowa the his team
I saw that. Hilarious. I'll bet he was the only one that actually watched the game too.
To be fair he had Oregon at 4 before the game.
Respect.
Shaun Goodwin, again wtf are you doing. He has Alabama ranked ahead of both Ohio State and Indiana.
No matter how much people want to pretend, week 1 actually did happen. Florida State's wins this year:
Kent State
East Texas A&M
Wake Forest
Alabama
Just ridiculous
Any combo of OSU, Indiana, and A&M is perfectly acceptable at 1-3. Anything else is just stupid.
Also - Florida State clearly just doesn’t like teams with Nick Saban connections.
yeah having us 3 after the weekend is whatever although i’d guess they’d make it 1v2 for the B1G title game just for the ratings. anything lower as a 9-0/10-0 P4 school is just absurd
Idk, I would probably put A&M at number 1 based on resume and what I have watched of them this year, which admittedly mostly was vs LSU who just are not good right now. Ohio State would be second and then Indiana at 3. I would probably place Georgia and Oregon ahead of Bama for Georgia 4, Oregon 5, Bama 6 and Texas Tech at 7. Not buying Ole Miss at all as a top 5 team, but that's just vibes
Bama best Georgia tho.
Yeah but Georgia don't have a bad loss like Bama's loss to FSU. Plus Bama did not look good vs South Carolina even though they won. For those reasons I would disregard the head to head and at that point on comparing resumes I think Georgias looks better.
If only they played each other to see who's better.
If playing each other once showed anything definitive we would have had a different national champion last year, after all, Ohio State couldn't possibly have beaten Oregon in the Rose Bowl when Oregon were better because they won the regular season match up.
Head to head is A metric but it's not the only metric. If they were identical in my opinion of them then it's a valid way to separate them, but that wouldn't be the case here. Georgia have passed every test fairly comfortably except for the head to head with Alabama and the OT game with Tennessee, giving them 1 loss to what I would still hold as a top 10 team.
Alabama lost to 3-6 Florida State, struggled with 3-6 south Carolina and just this week didn't exactly light up the world vs 5-4 LSU. If they were the number 4 team I would expect a similar result to the one that A&M achieved. I don't think that the 3 point win vs Georgia is enough to rank Bama ahead, and I would also put Oregon ahead of Alabama given their only loss is to a top 3 team and they have handled business elsewhere.
But you are probably just going to make some comment about head to head again and I have wasted enough time explaining my rationale to someone who doesn't want to listen to the argument so I shall bid you good day and good luck for the rest of the season
You're downplaying the actual onfield result between two team and talking metrics and eye test to justify putting the loser over the winner.
That's just wild. We don't get a 7 game series in football, due to obvious reasons. That doesn't make the actual result worthless.
I'm talking metrics and eye test because 1 game does not a champion make. Or are Cal better than Louisville now? Wake Forrest better than Virginia? The win doesn't mean nothing and I am not completely discounting it. It's a win over what in my view is a top 4 opponent, which coupled with the wins over Vandy and Tennessee make Bama a top 6 team. It's about looking at the whole picture rather than letting 1 game set things in stone.
Nah, Ohio State should definitely be above Indiana right now. While wins are what matters, against teams with equal records you can't pretend that Indiana wasn't lucky to escape with a win against a 3-6 Penn State that's now 0-6 in the conference.
The same exact team that lost to Ohio State in the exact same time & place extremely handily.
Kent State- Nick Saban went there
EastTexas A&M is ranked #3Wake is great
Alabama is ranked #4
Seems like a good resume to me
Shaun also has JMU ranked over Louisville.
A bunch of other people do as well, and some people have JMU ranked and Louisville unranked, but yeah another case of AP voters voting based on… something.
It's not really much different than the aggressive ranking of Notre Dame, where we have ND ahead of Miami and around the 1 loss teams because of their tight ranked losses. He's putting heavier weight on the larger volume of ranked wins and discounting the opening loss
It's against the traditional CFB grain but it lines up with college basketball voting. Plenty of years where the 1 seed will have more losses/ugly losses compared to 2 seeds but the the 1st Quadrant and 2nd Quadrant win volume comes into play
Are Missouri and Tennessee better wins than wins over Iowa and Illinois? Or Illinois and Washington? They’re all 6-3 teams without a significant win of their own (except Illinois). Maybe they are but I tend to think we’re giving way too much credence to ranked at the time wins.
Alabama has two solid wins (that win over Georgia may be the best win in the country) to OSU and Indiana’s one a piece. I don’t think that’s enough to overcome a bad loss though when the other two are undefeated.
Every computer metric seems to think so, yes.
It’s certainly a stretch. If anything I think it should be:
Aggies
Indiana
Buckeyes
Bama/Georgia.
Buckeyes downvoting after submitting their hurt feelings chit.
There’s no real reason to not have Ohio State in first or second place.
Im fairly confident Aggies have better wins, better SoS, SoR, more ranked wins. What do the Buckeyes objectively have over Aggies, resume wise? Same goes for Indiana.
Ohio State last won the championship and has body bagged almost everyone they’ve played. A lot of voters aren’t going to knock and undefeated defending national champion off the number one spot, and Ohio State would be favored over A&M on a neutral field if they played tomorrow.
Doesn’t matter who’s favored. That’s not a ranking criteria.
Defending national championships are not a criteria for the ranking.
They should be knocked down if their schedule isn’t as good as the others- it’s that simple.
Apparently you’re wrong and those are criteria. Different AP voters are going to weigh things differently.
Arguing that they should be knocked down because their schedule isn’t as hard is stupid. They’re a great team and have beaten everyone in front of them. If you want them to get knocked down, beat them. Otherwise, deal.
Like it or not, voters factor in prior success when ranking teams. And there’s no reason to believe Ohio State has regressed from where they were at last year, when they won the championship.
No one is talking about the AP because the AP doesn’t matter.
Do you agree that the 2025 Buckeyes are not the 2024 buckeyes? I’m just making sure. With that same logic, there is no reason to believe that any team is better or worse than last year.
Do you care about the CFP rankings? Because they also have Ohio State at number one.
You just seem angry that the voters aren’t punishing Ohio State for not having as hard a schedule as A&M. They’re both undefeated, but the difference is that one of them has the same coach and a lot of the same players that just stomped everyone to win a championship this past January.
Nobody cares if A&M has a harder schedule than Ohio State. They’ve both beaten everyone in front of them and until Ohio State loses a game, they aren’t moving from the top spot. Because as much as you seem to hate it, recent history does matter.
I care about the CFP ranking, which don’t include prior championships as a criteria.
Not mad that they aren’t “punished”, however, I think teams that have done more deserve more. Aggies have done more, Indiana has done more. Replace the teams with A, B, and C- Ohio state is 3 every time.
It’s gotta be 1. OSU 2. Indiana 3. Aggies, Indiana does have an argument for number one because they have the best win of the 3 @Oregon. Ohio state gets number 1 for me tho, they’ve only played 1, one possession game all season vs Texas first game of the season. A&M has 3 @Arkansas @Notre dame vs auburn. Indiana has 2 @Iowa @penn state.
OSU has just been more dominant, granted they’ve had the easiest schedule of the 3, but they’re taking care of business every week.
I'm sorry Shaun hurt your feelings. :(
One of my least favorite things on Reddit is when someone rightfully calls out something as stupid, and then the person replying acts like it “hurt their feelings” or “offended them” or that they’re “whining.”
No, they’re calling an idiot an idiot.
Hey, that hurts my feelings!
I can't wait for another post from that Ohio State guy ranting about the vote from Pat Welter and how A&M are still frauds.
There's always a few unfortunately
Lol @ John Johnson for putting us ahead of Georgia—the only team we’ve lost to and has the same record as us. I know you’re a Wake Forest guy, John but head to head results have gotta be one of the simplest ways to rank by—right?
I feel like it shouldn't always, but statistically we've been really close to each other in many ways ( efficiency on offense and defense) so I feel like in that case, yeah, you just use head to head. Like if we basically won 10-9 every other game, I think you can say we just played really well once.
The mob yearns for a scapegoat!
John Johnson has Ole Miss ahead of UGA who beat Ole Miss
He even has Bama ahead of FSU. H2H isn’t everything
Well yeah I agree but Ole Miss and UGA both have one loss and UGA lost to a top five team and Ole Miss lost to UGA. UGA has a much better SOS and their SOR are identical.
I’m just here to see what absurd ballot Koki Riley submitted this week.
IDK what Shaun Goodwin is doing but it’s funny
Stephen Means quickly approaching Koki levels of WTF
I think his ranking is great
Jon Wilner stan 4 life (he has us at 20)
He has A&M at 1 and has Texas at 19 (the lowest ranking for them) ... definitely my pick for best AP Voter
I wish I believed in us as much as some of these voters believe in us.
Shoutout to the one voter that ranked North Texas 20th. I see you and I appreciate you.
For everyone else, we just gotta keep winning. It's as simple as that.
Disrespecting H2H when records are same or H2H winner has better record:
9 voters with Oklahoma ahead of Texas
4 voters with Vanderbilt ahead of Texas
4 voters with Michigan ahead of USC
1 voter with Ole Miss ahead of Georgia
1 voter with Utah ahead of BYU
62 voters with Notre Dame ahead of Miami
I think the funniest part is the people who have Oklahoma and Texas ranked right next to each other with Oklahoma above Texas.
Mike Jacques and Kate Rogerson are interesting. Both have Oklahoma, Texas, and Vandy as 10-12. Both honor one H2H but disregard the other.
Mike - OU, Texas, Vandy
Kate - Vandy, Texas, OU
Texas, Vandy, OU is the correct take here
I suspect Steven Johnson and I would not be friends if we knew each other.
The guy from Cedar Rapids voting us 10th needs to settle down a bit. We can't stop a mild breeze.
Here's the plot of how voters this week compare to resume and predictive metrics.
Robert Cessna, my God, why hast Thou forsaken us?
Alex Taylor, Matt Murschel, Jerry Humphrey, Kate Rogerson, Zach Klein, Mason Young, Randy Johnson, Jamal St. Cyr, Kevin Carter, and Michael Lev all have JMU and Miami ranked while Louisville is unranked.
Alex Taylor seems to be the most egregious with JMU 15 and Miami 17. Mason Young has Miami 12 and JMU 19.
I know Louisville is not really in the at-large discussion for a playoff bid right now, but it’s stuff like this that informs me AP voters do not know what they are talking about.
Jon Wilner from the San Jose Mercury News may have the perfect balllot
Notre Dame at #6 is perfect? lol
Tbh I only looked at 2 teams lol