 Pollspeak
News
 Official
NCAA Baseball RPI Now On Pollstalker (posted
5/6/09)
Unlike most baseball rankings, which come out on Mondays, the
official NCAA RPI aren't released until Wednesday morning. We started tracking
them in week 11 and will add them to Pollstalker when they are made available.
See
POLLSTALKER and use the NCAA Baseball '09 Report to compare all of the
rankings.
Pollspeak Is Now On Twitter
(posted 4/27/09)
When you follow Pollspeak on Twitter, you will always
know when Pollstalker has been updated with the latest poll information.
It can even send a text message to your cell phone to let you know.
Click here to sign up
for a new Twitter account. If you want updates sent to your phone, be
sure to enable device updates here
after your account is created.
Next, go to
Pollspeak's Twitter page and click the Follow button. Finally, if you want
Pollspeak updates sent to your cell phone, turn on device updates for Pollspeak
on your friends page.
Pollspeak Gets A Sponsor
(posted 3/6/09)
Pollspeak is pleased to announce its first sponsor. See the "Sponsored By"
box on the right, under the News. Please click the link, support our sponsor, and help
keep Pollspeak running strong and free.
'09
Baseball Polls On Pollstalker (posted
2/23/09)
Like last year, Pollstalker let's you compare four (soon to be five) major
baseball polls: USA Today/ESPN, Baseball America, Collegiate Baseball, and
the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) Poll. When
Massey (computer) releases their baseball rankings, Pollstalker will include
those as well. You can find the preseason and current week polls in
Pollstalker using the Sport menu on the left of Pollstalker. Choose NCAA
Baseball '09 or simply click here:
POLLSTALKER
BASEBALL and choose Run Report on the left menu.
 Free
The Ballots Petition Reaches: 500 (posted
2/11/09)
Our initial milestone has been reached, and the first draft of the petition will
soon be sent to the BCS, Harris Interactive, USA Today and AFCA. The goal of
the Free The Ballots Petition is to make all ballots public for all sports.
You can sign online HERE.
 George
Geise's Ballot Missing - Week 7 (posted
12/23/08)
AP voter George Geise did not vote this week (week 7) in the Men's Basketball
Poll. No replacement was or will be made.
Did the BCS do its job? Are the computers being allowed to do theirs?
Or are they being treated like mere tools made to serve human needs like some
kind of...robot?
Read all about it in this week's blog on
SI.com.
 Coaches'
Poll Ballots Released (posted
12/8/08)
The USA Today Coaches' Poll has made its ballots public for
the first and only time during the 2008 season. You may now use
Pollstalker to analyze them. Use the USA Today-Coaches' Poll '08 Report
(found in the "Poll" drop down on the left side menu), or
CLICK HERE.
 Harris
Interactive Ballots Released (posted
12/8/08)
The Harris Interactive College Football Poll has made its ballots public for
the first and only time during the 2008 season. You may now use
Pollstalker to analyze them. Use the Harris Interactive Poll '08 Report
(found in the "Poll" drop down on the left side menu), or
CLICK HERE. There are only 113 voters, as Don Criqui did not turn in a
ballot.
Look for the Coaches' Poll ballots in Pollstalker once they are released late
on Monday.
The Big 12 really could learn a thing or two about tiebreakers from the SEC,
and the SEC can learn a thing or two about beating ACC teams outside the state
of Florida.
Read all about it in this week's blog on
SI.com.
Can the ACC really be #1? Oh yeah? Well how would the ACC have
done in WWII versus the Axis? Plus the BCS now has even more
responsibility. It may be used to decide the Big 12 South champion.
Read all about it in this week's blog on
SI.com.
This week we discuss The Billingsley Report, Maurice Patton and once again
Barrack Obama. Obama may be the most college football friendly president
since Gerald Ford. Read it all in this week's blog on
SI.com.
What do Barack Obama, Fat Albert, The Colley Matrix, Alabama, Texas Tech and
Texas all have in common? That's right; they're all mentioned in the first
three paragraphs in this week's blog on
SI.com.
There are signs that the polls are going to Hell in a hand basket. We
saw the signs that opened up our eyes, and now you can too. Also, tips on
understanding Sagarin, and why did the Coaches drop Texas like they're hot?
Read about it in this week's blog on
SI.com.
Learn about four flaws in the current system that must be corrected if the
BCS is to survive. Pollspeak's most intriguing special feature yet
includes never before released information about how the BCS works. Click
the link above to read it or go to the
FOOTBALL
section and check out the new "Features" menu at the top of every page.
Is there still consensus? Is the BCS watered down? Are people watching
the games? What does Barbara Billingsley have to do with football?
Those questions answered and more
in this week's blog on
SI.com.
A momentous event occurred this week in the BCS standings -- something rare
and beautiful.
Read about this special, unique occurrence plus a bunch of the same old garbage
in this week's blog on
SI.com.
This week's
article covers Texas getting respect, Oklahoma State getting no respect, Florida
getting more respect and, of course, respecting a head-to-head win.
Respect it
HERE.
Amazingly, Sports Illustrated hasn't kicked us to the curb. This week's
entry covers the problem of ranking Pittsburgh, USF and Kansas. Also, are
computer polls biased towards schools with good computer science programs? Check it out
HERE.
Pollspeak's first poll-related blog for SI.com was just published. If
you're interested in the polls, be sure to check it out. If enough people
view it, hopefully there will be more blogs to come. Check it out
HERE.
First
Harris Interactive Poll Released (posted
9/28/08)
You can find the results for the first 2008 Harris Interactive College
Football Poll
in Pollstalker HERE. Also of interest, here is a list of
HICFP
voter changes made from 2007 to 2008 and
here is a shorter version listing only the 20 changes made.
There is a brewing controversy surrounding preseason
college football polls – mainly because where a team starts often determines how
high it can finish. Preseason
rankings do matter. See specific examples of the double standard used to
rank non-BCS teams in Bryan Frost's new article on the
FOOTBALL Page.
Ever wonder
how voters are chosen and what they’re instructed to do?
Here is your chance to find out.
We contacted officials at the Associated Press (AP), USA Today, American
Football Coaches Association (AFCA) and Harris Interactive to find out how they
conduct their polls and compare them to each other.
In typical Pollspeak fashion, we even rank their answers in each
category. Let’s see how they like
it! Read the full article on
the FOOTBALL Page.
Today we turn to the AP Poll in part two of our series
covering voter changes and demographics in the polls.
See Pollspeak’s previous article on the Coaches’ Poll below.
It’s more difficult to spot regional bias in the AP Poll than in the
Coaches’ Poll. We’re not saying that bias
doesn’t exist, but the potential for it is just much less transparent.
Read the full article on the
FOOTBALL page.
As part of our preseason analysis of the polls, we look at
who's doing the voting. We compare
the voters from last year to this year and point out who's left and who's
new. We’ll also look at potential
regional or conference biases. We’ll
begin the series with the USA Today Coaches’ Poll.
Read the full article on the
FOOTBALL page.
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Pollspeak's
Blog on SI.com
How
To Save The BCS 
Non-BCS
Teams Suffer From Preseason Bias
Special(ly
Long) Report: Ranking The Polls
Big
10 Has The Edge In Coaches' Poll
