Preseason

This is a series I've been doing on /r/CollegeBasketball for 3 years, and now /r/CFB for 7. The post attempts to visualize consistency between voters in the AP Poll 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.

The Poll has 63 voters this year, with the following breakdown:

4+ Years B.J. Rains, Ben Steele, Bob Holt, Brian Holland, Bruce Pascoe, Chris Murray, Dave Borges, Dave Matter, Dave Preston, David Cloninger, Dick Vitale, Donna Ditota, Geoff Grammer, James Crepea, Jeff Call, Jerry Carino, Jesse Newell, John Werner, Jon Rothstein, Jon Wilner, Kevin McNamara, Lauren Brownlow, Luke DeCock, Marcus Fuller, Mark Berman, Paul Klee, Rick Bozich, Scott Richey, Scott Wolf, Seth Davis, Sheldon Mickles, Steve Hewitt
Other Returners Chad Leistikow, Chris Basnett, Jeff Rabjohns, Kevin Brockway, Nick Suss, Stephen Means, Wayne Epps, Zach Klein, Bob Ballou, Clayton Collier, David Jablonski, Donald Hunt, Ethan Joyce, Jeff Borzello, Justin Jackson, Matt Murschel, Stephen Tsai, Bennett Conlin
First Year Andrew Kahn, Aria Gerson, Bret Bloomquist, Bryce Miller, Jeff Welsch, Mia O'Brien, Mike Rodak, Nick Kelly, Steve Greenberg, Jerry DiPaola, Kelly Hines
Returning after last year off Terry Toohey, Theo Lawson
Leaving the Poll Brian McInnis, Cecil Hurt, Craig Meyer, Edgar Thompson, Joe Juliano, Ken Weinman, Shannon Ryan, Adam Grosbard, Jack Ebling, Joe Buettner, Jordan Hansen, Lauren Kirschman, Sam Blum, Troy Provost-Heron, Josh Vitale

A pair of Kellys, Kelly Hines and Nick Kelly were the most consistent voters in the preseason poll. Terry Toohey, Jeff Borzello, Chris Murray, and Jeff Call were not far behind.

The biggest outlier was Dave Borges, followed by Jon Wilner, Donald Hunt, Bob Ballou, and Stephen Tsai.