Bad Voter of Week 11 -- Jon Wilner   (posted 11/5/08)

This is Jon Wilner's second week in a row as Pollspeak's Pick, but his first unanimous pick for the season.  Texas Tech fans likely led the charge in voting against Wilner, but we can't blame them.

Wilner is the only voter to rank Texas over Texas Tech after the Red Raiders defeated the Longhorns just last week.  This is about as obvious a case of ignoring head-to-head results as we've seen. 

While he wasn't alone on the following choices, he also ranked Alabama, Penn State, and BYU lowest (or unranked in BYU's case).  On the opposite end of the spectrum, he ranked South Carolina, North Carolina and Texas highest, while giving Florida their only number #1 vote. 

While he does have a lot of extremes, he actually has most head-to-head matchups ordered as you would expect.  The Texas Tech vs. Texas one being the major exception.

We spent enough time on Wilner last week so we'll keep this brief and move on to a more positive topic.

Good Voter of Week 11 -- Kirk Herbstreit   (posted 11/5/08)

Kirk Herbstreit's week 11 ballot is surprisingly average for a fan favorite.  He has no extreme votes and only one near-extreme (TCU).  He did rank Texas lowest at #7, but 12 others agreed with him.  He has some head-to-head matchups out of order (for example, Michigan State #17 over California #20 over Maryland #23), but Maryland has been a very hard team to predict and has some terrible losses, and Michigan State has the most wins of the trio (for now).  We're not sure why the fans picked Herbstreit this week; regardless, it's an overall good ballot, so we'll go along with the readers and make it unanimous.

Pollspeak's Blog on SI.com  (posted 11/3/08)

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.

How To Save The BCS (posted 10/30/08)

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 check out the new "Features" menu at the top of every page in the Football section.