All data in this article is borrowed from collegepolltracker.com
Welcome back for the 2017-2018 edition of Cracking the Code! Here’s a little background on the article (or to my loyal followers, a refresher on how I did it last year):
We all know the AP Poll is the definitive answer to who the best teams in college sports are, right? Ehhhhhhh maybe not. People see the small little number next to the teams with their ranking and don’t think anything of it other than knowing that some random people decided that rank.
I’m here to spread the word on the way the AP poll works. It is on a point scale: 1 point for a vote at 25, 2 for 24, 3 for 23, and so on. This is compiled together into total points and then the teams are ranked based on these points. Sounds simple, right?
But who are these people that are voting? That is often the part that is off everybody’s radar. There are 64 sportswriters across the country who are sending in their polls each week. 61 of these writers are associated with a local publication, and 3 of them are national voters (ESPN, SI, NPR). And luckily, the power of technology lets us look into how each individual voter ranked the teams and see who had the best/worst/craziest votes.
Most Accurate Poll of the Week: Sheldon Mickles, Baton Rouge Advocate
For those unfamiliar, this award is for the person who has their poll the closest to the actual AP Top 25. This early in the season there is not going to be much variation from the preseason poll, so there were a lot of contenders. Mickles was the most consistent across the board, as his only real difference was having Texas A&M at 20 (actual: 16). Nothing much of note here, but that’s kind of the point of being the most accurate poll, isn’t it??
Least Accurate Poll of the Week: David Cobb, Chattanooga Times Free Press
Man, this poll is all over the place. Again, not to be unexpected because it is so early in the season but there are some really odd decisions. Starts with Notre Dame at #5 (actual: 13). They will be a good team, but are one of those “need-to-prove-it” to be in the top 5. He has Cincinnati at #6 (actual: 12) which follows the same idea of Notre Dame, prove it. After that it gets odd. Arizona (who is receiving first place votes) at #8, TCU at #11 (?!?! no one else has them within the top 20), Texas Tech at #20 (actual: 36), SMU at #22 (actual: 39), along with some other odd ones mixed in. I’ll write it off to early season uncertainty but David Cobb is off to a shaky start this year.
Student Union Award for Best Pick: Brian McInnis, Honolulu Star-Advertiser & Scott Mansch, Great Falls Tribune
The Pick: Wisconsin at #25
Again for those not familiar, this award is my personal pick for a person I think ranked a team where I believe they should be vs. where they are in the actual poll. It took a little while to figure out who I wanted to put here, and I’m not completely sold on this pick but I’ll go out on a limb. Wisconsin is a team that is always near the top of the Big Ten and while they lost a lot of talent from last year, Ethan Happ is a stud and they’ll have their “next-man-up.” Being at 25 seems to be about right, especially after a solid win over a Yale team who should be near the top of the Ivy yet again.
The Student Union Award for Worst Pick: David Cobb, Chattanooga Times Free Press
The Pick: TCU at #11
I really have no clue about this one. TCU is a solid team and Jamie Dixon has done a fantastic job turning around the program into a tournament team and even a top 25 contender. This is in no way a bashing of TCU as a program. It is more based around the fact he put them at #11 even though they aren’t ranked higher than 20 in any other poll (including unranked in more than half of the individual polls and unranked in the actual poll). They also only had a 10 point win over a Louisiana-Monroe team picked to be last in the Sun Belt. I’m not sold on them being ranked #11, but they will be a solid team nonetheless.
My Poll:
New this year at Student Union is our SU25 poll and as one of the voters, I feel like this is the perfect place to post my personal poll. Feel free to put me on blast for my bad picks and like everyone on the internet does, let me know when I pick well (ha, yeah right).
- Duke
- Michigan State
- Kansas
- Arizona
- Villanova
- Kentucky
- Wichita State
- Florida
- North Carolina
- Cincinnati
- USC
- West Virginia
- Miami
- Notre Dame
- Minnesota
- Louisville
- Xavier
- Gonzaga
- Northwestern
- Purdue
- UCLA
- Saint Mary’s
- Seton Hall
- Baylor
- TCU