Pollspeak Reports to the AP, USA Today, Harris Interactive and BCS Released (posted 1/22/08)

USA Today Refuses to Release Final Coaches' Ballots (posted 1/10/08)

Pollspeak asked the USA Today when they would be releasing the ballots for their final football poll.  The answer is...they're not.  Here was their response: 

"the coaches' ballots submitted after the bowls games will not be released. our agreement with the coaches' association only extends to the final regular-season ballot in football."

Needless to say, this is yet another accountability problem that should be fixed in the future, and it will be addressed in our season-end report to the USA Today and the BCS.  Comments?  Discuss on the FORUMS.

Bad Voter of Week 16 -- Glenn Guilbeau, Gannett Louisiana News Service (posted 1/15/08)

Glenn Guilbeau is our first Bad Voter of the Week and our last of the 2007 football season.  Previously we named "Worst" Voters of the Week.  The name change allows us to give more weight to your votes and will hopefully lead to some more variety.  If Pollspeak sees that a more heinous offender is falling through the cracks, we'll point him or her out.

In the meantime, Guilbeau not only won the un-popular vote (see below) but he was also this week's most extreme voter.  It is good to see that the majority of Pollspeak readers are highly educated and are not only swayed by the treatment of their favorite team.  Unlike the first Pollspeak vote, where more than 400 angry Kentucky fans overwhelmed the voting and targeted Craig James with their outrage.

Oh, who are we kidding.  When the offense is egregious enough, an angry mob will always take over the voting.  This week's alignment might just be coincidental.  Here are a few teams who might not be happy with Guilbeau in his final ballot:

• USC -- #7 -- lowest
• Oklahoma -- #15 -- lowest
• Clemson -- Unranked -- lowest

Guilbeau's highest rankings of Kentucky (#16), Tennessee (#9), Missouri (#3) and Ohio State (#2), didn't seem to win him many votes though.

The top four bad vote-getters are listed below.  The way Pollspeak will tabulate final rankings is based on Bad Votes minus Good Votes.  This system will carry on through basketball season, and we'll re-evaluate before next football season.

Good Voter of Week 16 -- Tom Keegan, Lawrence Journal-World (posted 1/16/08)

Congratulations to Tom Keegan, our last Good Voter of the Week for the 2007 football season.  Aside from not angering any large, internet-savvy fan base, he also has zero extreme votes and only two near the extreme:  the relatively high Kansas at #3 and relatively low USC at #5.

As with the Bad Voter of the Week, we'll spare a discussion of Rule #1 this late in the season.  There are so many A vs. B vs. C situations at this point, that the analysis would be too long to make good reading.  However, you can feel free to discuss the issue on our FORUMS.  For example, why would most people (including Keegan) vote Oregon higher than Oregon State?  Even though they have the same record and Oregon State won the head-to-head match up.  Discuss.

The top four good vote-getters are listed below.  The way Pollspeak will tabulate final rankings is based on Good Votes minus Bad Votes.  This system will carry on through basketball season, and we'll re-evaluate before next football season.  Note that Kirk Herbstreit is in the top four of both good and bad votes.  However, he still has 20 more bad than good votes.  Also noteworthy, it seems people enjoy casting bad votes more than good votes.

Worst Voter of the Year - Football 2007 -- Jon Wilner, San Jose Mercury News  (posted 1/17/08)

Jon Wilner is our inaugural Worst Voter of the Year.  Pollspeak debated various methods for choosing:  open votes or heated internal debates with people arguing over things like standard deviation and hurling words like "inept" or "prejudice" across the boardroom like weapons.  However, in the end, we determined that all the information necessary to make the decision had already been gathered over the course of the season.  So we agreed on a simple point system:

• Worst Voter of the Week = 1 point
• DIS-Honorable Mention = 1/2 point

Ties would be broken by counting negative mentions in the Quick Hits section.  (Not all Quick Hits are negative.)  However, there would be no tie this year.  This method is a bit predictable and isn't nearly as exciting as the other methods, but our Worst Voter of the Year won by such a convincing margin, there was no need for drama.

Not only was Wilner the points leader (see below), but he also took Worst Voter of the Week an unprecedented three weeks straight (weeks 13-15).  His only DIS-Honorable Mention came in week 12, and his first Worst Voter of the Week was in week 10.  So out of the 10 weeks that Pollspeak awarded dubious honors, Wilner was singled out in half.  The competition really didn't stand a chance.

Ironically, Wilner's final ballot in week 16, was one of his least concerning.  Maybe he sensed that he was dangerously close to locking up Worst Voter of the Year and tried to avoid the distinction.  Or maybe Pollspeak has helped educate him.  Or maybe it is a coincidence.  In any case, Wilner will top our recommendation list for removal from the AP Poll in our coming report to the AP.  If the AP decides to include Wilner next year, we hope he takes greater care with the responsibility vested in him, and he moves forward knowing that we are now paying attention.