Week 9 WORST Voter -- Adam Van Brimmer, Savannah Morning News  (posted 10/24/07)

Last Week, Brimmer was given the Underdog Award in the Quick Hits section.  This was basically a warning shot across the bow, but unfortunately Brimmer did not take evasive action.  Here are some highlights from his week 9 Ballot:

1)  Brimmer gives Hawaii its highest ranking of any human or computer.  Placing Hawaii at #7, Brimmer seems to put too much faith in the Warriors undefeated record.  Looking at any other measure (i.e. who they've played and how they've won) would lead most voters to rank them much lower.  Hawaii has needed two overtime wins against Louisiana Tech and San Jose State (neither has a winning record) to stay undefeated.  Even more damning is Hawaii's schedule.  Anderson Hester ranks there schedule 119 (as low as they track) and Sagarin ranks their schedule a horrendous 171...in other words, worse than many IAA schools.  On that note, the computers also rank Hawaii much lower in general (see Computer Round-Up below).  You can't rely on computer rankings alone, but when the computers rank undefeated teams so low, there is a concern.

2)  Arizona State is ranked #13.  This actually doesn't stand on its own as a major issue, but is more related to #1.  If Hawaii is #7 based on its undefeated record, why would Arizona State be #13?  By comparison, the Sun Devil's schedule is ranked #48 by Anderson Hester and #60 by Sagarin.  Also concerning is the distance between Ohio State (#1) / Boston College (#2) and Arizona State (#13).  All of these teams (including Kansas) are in a similar situation and should be ranked fairly close together when viewed without bias.  However, Brimmer is not the only voter with this issue.

3)  He is the only voter to rank Troy (again).  Troy has only beaten one team with a winning record, Oklahoma State.  That is a pretty impressive win compared to the rest of their schedule.  However, no other voters think the Trojans should even be ranked, let alone ranked over Georgia, Auburn or Cal, as Brimmer does.

4)  He gives Air Force their highest ranking at #17.  In fact, Air Force received only one other vote at #25.  Pollspeak (and most of the computers) agree with Brimmer that Air Force should be ranked higher than Troy, but nobody else agrees they should be that high.

5)  Brimmer gives Connecticut its highest ranking at #20 and Boise State their highest ranking at #16.  Pollspeak doesn't think these rankings merit concern on their own, but when taken in total, Brimmer seems to have an underdog bias or (excluding UConn) a non-BCS team bias.  This is certainly uncommon among voters.
There are other items that could be pointed out, but these are the highlights.  We'll let you discuss the rest on our FORUMS.

Week 9 DIS-honorable Mention -- Scott Wolf, Los Angeles Daily News (posted 10/24/07)

Scott Wolf was actually this week's top vote getter on Pollspeak.  However, the votes were much more evenly distributed this week so we will keep this one short and make many small observations in the Quick Hits section below.  Here are some highlights from Wolf's week 9 ballot.

1)  Wolf ranks Arizona State #15, which is the lowest of any voter. As mentioned above, Ohio State, Boston College, Arizona State and Kansas are all in the same boat...and it's a boat only big enough for a few teams.  When making unbiased decisions, these four should be floating right near each other.  Of course, if a ballot was the Titanic, then it would be OK for first-class passengers to get in the lifeboats instead.

2)  Texas at #12.  Wolf gives the highest ranking for Texas.  While this is notable, it wouldn't qualify as a concern except when combined with #1... two-loss Texas ranked over undefeated Arizona State and undefeated Kansas (#13).

3)  The third concern is a general tendency to rank losers of head-to-head match-ups over winners.  See the explanation of Rule #1 from last week.  Wolf ranks Cal over UCLA, Kentucky over South Carolina, Alabama over Georgia, and West Virginia over South Florida.  Wolf isn't alone in doing some of these, and one could make good cases for some of those decisions, but the fact that the loser is ranked higher in every case is concerning.  The WVU and South Florida rankings seem like an obvious error...but several voters still agree with Wolf.  Pollspeak theorizes that these rankings sometimes happen because people feel obligated to only move teams up or down a certain number of spaces each week instead of re-addressing the entire ballot each week.  That causes some strange rankings of teams with the same record, but with winners ranked behind losers.  Cal over UCLA was another common one.  Also, Wolf not only put two-loss Georgia behind two-loss Alabama (who Georgia beat), but he also put them behind three-loss Auburn.

There are other items that could be pointed out, but these are the highlights.  We'll let you discuss the rest on our FORUMS.

Computer Round-Up  (posted 10/24/07)

Computer Round-Up is a quick look at the computer polls; particularly where they disagree with the human polls or with each other.

1)  The computers generally like Virginia. The human polls rank Virginia -- Harris = #20, AP = #21, Coaches' = #18.  3 of the 5 computer polls (Colley, Wolfe & Massey) have Virginia at #6.  Anderson Hester has Virginia ranked #8.  And the remaining two (Sagarin & Billingsley) are in line with the human polls (#22 & #17).

2)  The computers generally don't like USC.  The human polls rank USC -- Harris = #7, AP = #9, Coaches' = #8.  The computers on the other hand rank them considerably lower --  Colley = #24, Sagarin = #24, Wolfe = #23, Massey = #26, Anderson Hester #14.  Billingsley is the only one who disagrees and ranks USC at #4.

3)  Only one computer thinks Hawaii is a top 25 team.  Wolfe rates them #17.  The next best ranking is Anderson Hester at #31.  Colley has them unranked, and Massey has them at #68.  Two overtime wins and one of the weakest schedules in the country is the reason for the lack of digital respect.

4) The computers generally like Connecticut.  In fact, they like them enough that they are ranked #23 in the BCS standings...even though they didn't crack the top 25 in any human poll.  Only one computer poll didn't like them (Billingsly = #41).  The rest have them ranked in the top 20.

5) The computers generally like Wake Forest, but not enough to crack the BCS standings.  Only one computer poll didn't place them in the top 25 (Sagarin= #28).  Billingsly has them ranked #21.  The rest have them ranked in the top 20. 

6) Massey seems to really like the ACC with:  Virginia #6, Wake Forest #15, Georgia Tech #23, and Maryland #24.

7) Sagarin ranks Kansas as the #2 team.

There are other items that could be pointed out, but these are the highlights.  We'll let you discuss the rest on our FORUMS.

Quick Hits From Around the Country (posted 10/24/07)

Rich Kaipust, Omaha World-Herald -- last week ranked West Virginia #2 while he ranked the South Florida team that beat them #5.  He addressed that this week by dropping South Florida to #9 after their loss to Rutgers...even though they now have the same record, and South Florida won the head-to-head.  Still ahead of South Florida is Virginia Tech at #5  He gave the Hokies their highest ranking along with one other voter.

Neal McCready, Mobile Press-Register -- is the lone voter to rank Arizona State #1 for the second week in a row.  Pollspeak is not implying this is a bad choice. Just pointing it out as unique.  However, the fact that he has Kansas, who is in a similar situation, ranked #11 is a concern.

Craig James, ABC -- gives Boston College its lowest ranking (#7).

John Moredich, Tucson (AZ) Citizen -- is one of only four voters to rank Clemson, and he ranks them highest at #16.  He is also the only voter to rank Texas A&M (#25).

Brian Landman, St. Petersburg (FL) Times -- gives Kansas its lowest ranking (#20).

Steve Conroy,  Boston Herald -- ranks West Virginia #4 and South Florida #15.  Although neither one is the most extreme ranking, the differential between the two (11) is largest margin for the loser to be ahead of the winner in this head-to-head match-up.

Kirk Herbstreit, WBNS-AM Columbus (ESPN) -- is one of only two voters to rank Oklahoma State.  He ranks them the highest at #24.

Glenn Guilbeau, Gannett Louisiana and Mike Prater, Idaho Statesman -- both give Florida their highest ranking of #4.  Both ranked the Gators higher than some undefeated BCS teams but lower than others.  Pollspeak is unsure why they separate the unbeatens (who all appear relatively equal on paper and who don't have common opponents) with one loss teams.

Austin Ward, Casper (WY) Star-Tribune -- gives Alabama its highest ranking (#13).  He is also one of two people to rank BYU.  He ranks them highest at #21.

Jon Wilner, San Jose (Calif.) Mercury -- gives Ohio State its lowest ranking at #5.

Tommy Trujillo, The New Mexican -- was one of the few people to rank UConn last week and yet he dropped them from his rankings this week after their major victory over Louisville.  In their place, he ranked Fresno State #23...the only person to rank them.

Molly Yanity, Seattle Post-Intelligence -- only voter to rank Cincinnati (#25).

Steve Batterson, Quad City (IA) Times --  only voter to rank Purdue (#25).

Mike Strain, Tulsa (OK) World -- only voter to rank Tennessee (#23).
The only team with a loss to receive #1 votes is LSU.  They received five #1 votes in the AP Poll and two #1 votes in the Harris Interactive Poll.

There are other items that could be pointed out, but these are the highlights.  We'll let you discuss the rest on our FORUMS.

GOOD Voter of Week 9 -- Bret Bloomquist, El Paso Times (posted 10/24/07)

Bret Bloomquist gets the nod for Good Voter of the Week.  Aside from having no major concerns, he does a good job of showing little bias between the four undefeated teams (with similar schedules):

•  Ohio State = #1
•  Boston College= #2
•  Arizona State = #4
•  Kansas = #6

This is one of the tightest groupings of these four teams amongst all the voters.  Bloomquist also did a good job of ranking the winners of head-to-head match ups over the losers:

•  South Florida = #7, West Virginia = #11
•  Georgia = #21, Alabama = unranked
•  South Carolina = #14, Kentucky = #16
•  Michigan = #22, Penn State = #23
•  Virginia = #20, Connecticut = #25

The only place he didn't follow through was with California (#18) over UCLA (unranked).  However, people could (and have) make the point that UCLA lost to inferior teams and deserve to be ranked lower.  In the end though, Cal lost to UCLA and that's the best opportunity a team has to "prove it on the field."  Pollspeak asserts that when teams have a similar record, unbiased voters give these match-ups more weight than abstract statistics and hypothetical "what if's" and "could-have-been's."

Discuss Good Voters of the Week on our FORUMS.