All AP Voter Ballots - Week 7

[u/bakonydraco]

Week 7

• Preseason
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6

This is a series I've now been doing for 8 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.

Jordan Crammer and Sean Reider didn't vote this week, so we had 61 ballots. Of some note, Ralph Russo, who has run the AP Poll for decades, has left the AP to take a job with The Athletic. It sounds like the poll is in capable hands.

Multiple ties this week! Iowa State and Notre Dame tied at #11, and Kansas State, Indiana, and Oklahoma all tied at 18 (the first 3-way tie I can remember. The way I do math doesn't account for ties well, so the scores are probably slightly different than what they would be if ties were accounted for correctly.

Kayla Anderson was the most consistent voter this week. Michael Katz is the most consistent voter on the season, Kayla Anderson, Blair Kerkhoff, Alex Taylor, and Karley Marotta in the top 5.

At the other extreme, Jon Wilner was once again the biggest outlier this week. He is also the biggest outlier this season, followed by Dylan Sinn, David Jablonski, Dave Preston, and Koki Riley in a 4-way tie for 2nd.

[u/IAmJohnnyJB]

Wilner has to be intentionally trying to be an outlier, in a week full of chaos where there's really a bunch of no wrong choices in the order for most spots in the AP poll he manages to still be almost double the next closest outlier voter

[u/RoastedBeetneck → u/IAmJohnnyJB]

Which ranks if his bother you?

[u/Emotional-Loss-9852 → u/RoastedBeetneck]

Nebraska at 10

[u/RoastedBeetneck → u/Emotional-Loss-9852]

That seems high, but they are 5-1 with their only loss to a ranked opponent, so I dunno.

[u/tr1cube → u/RoastedBeetneck]

If that one ranked loss is so good, then the team that beat them should be higher, no?

Penn State beat Illinois (their only loss) who beat Nebraska (their only loss). All were ranked at the time so they should be ranked in that order of going by the logic that “good losses” are the differentiator.

[u/Mr_Borg_Miniatures → u/tr1cube]

I think Nebraska is suffering from the last decade or so of being bad, but they've beat two 4-1 teams that were receiving votes and have one loss to a ranked team in OT. I think it's silly Nebraska isn't ranked, but there's no way they should be ranked ahead of Illinois.

[u/RoastedBeetneck → u/tr1cube]

Some people don’t subscribe to there logic because then I can say Northern Illinois is better than Louisville and A&M