Poll shenanigans...

[95coug]

While I was looking at the AP polls to try to reinforce my opinion on another thread, I found this and was more bothered by it. Join me in my rage.

Oklahoma gained votes after losing to Alabama. They were 8 votes from rising to #3 even after losing, and trailed Ohio State 1364-1356 in the final poll.

How is this possible? Here's how:
Week 14: Oklahoma is 11-1, and is ranked #5. They have 4 votes for 4th place after getting past West Virginia.
Week 15: Oklahoma beats Texas in the Big 12 championship, and rise to #4. They now have 1 3rd place vote and 46 4th place votes. 12 5th place, 2 6th.
Week 16: Oklahoma loses to Alabama, stay at #4. But with the loss, they now have 22 3rd place votes, 31 4th, and 8 5th.

How exactly does a team get ranked higher on a majority of ballots by losing?


This of course forces me to look at our own rankings, and here's what I found:

Week 14, after the AC loss, we were tied with LSU at #12. 818 points each.
Week 15, the poll that helped determined the NY6 berths - Texas lost to Oklahoma and fell to #14. LSU gained 2 more votes and moved to #11 and left us at 12. LSU got the last NY6 berth, because Oklahoma went to the playoff and Texas got the Sugar bowl.

Bad luck, right?

Nope. Look closer.
In week 14, we had 5 votes at #9, 8 at #10, 8 at #11, 7 at #12, 14 at #13, 8 at #14, 5 at #15, 2 at #16, 3 at #17, and 1 at #19
In week 15, we had only 2 votes at #9, 11 at #10, 11 at #11, 12 at #12, 13 at #13, 6 at #14, 2 at #15, 3 at #16, and 1 at #17

In week 14, our votes at #9 were Ben Jones, Chris Murray, Don Williams, Scott Rabalais, and Tom Murphy.
In week 15, Ben Jones and Don Williams still had us at #9. Chris Murray dropped us to #10, Tom Murphy to #11, and Scott Rabalais to #12.

LSU week 14: Chris Murray, Don Williams, and Tom Murphy had them at #10. Scott Rabalais had them at #11. Ben Jones had them at #15.
LSU week 15: Don Williams and Tom Murphy left them at #10. Ben Jones left them at #15. Chris Murray dropped them to #11, and Scott Rabalais moved them to #10.

So, while neither team played, Scott Rabalais dropped WSU 3 spots, and elevated LSU 1 spot, creating a 4 point differential for no apparent reason. Tom Murphy created another 2 points. The others were neutral.

Tom Murphy writes for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in Little Rock, and went to Louisiana Tech.

Scott Rabalais writes for the Baton Rouge Advocate. He's the author of "The Fighting Tigers 1993-2008: Into a New Century of LSU Football". He's a former senior writer for TigerDroppings.com, the ESPN-affiliated website for LSU. And he spends a lot of time writing about LSU football.

But I'm sure it's just coincidence that these two helped create space between us and LSU.

 

[Coug90]

While I was looking at the AP polls to try to reinforce my opinion on another thread, I found this and was more bothered by it. Join me in my rage.

Oklahoma gained votes after losing to Alabama. They were 8 votes from rising to #3 even after losing, and trailed Ohio State 1364-1356 in the final poll.

How is this possible? Here's how:
Week 14: Oklahoma is 11-1, and is ranked #5. They have 4 votes for 4th place after getting past West Virginia.
Week 15: Oklahoma beats Texas in the Big 12 championship, and rise to #4. They now have 1 3rd place vote and 46 4th place votes. 12 5th place, 2 6th.
Week 16: Oklahoma loses to Alabama, stay at #4. But with the loss, they now have 22 3rd place votes, 31 4th, and 8 5th.

How exactly does a team get ranked higher on a majority of ballots by losing?


This of course forces me to look at our own rankings, and here's what I found:

Week 14, after the AC loss, we were tied with LSU at #12. 818 points each.
Week 15, the poll that helped determined the NY6 berths - Texas lost to Oklahoma and fell to #14. LSU gained 2 more votes and moved to #11 and left us at 12. LSU got the last NY6 berth, because Oklahoma went to the playoff and Texas got the Sugar bowl.

Bad luck, right?

Nope. Look closer.
In week 14, we had 5 votes at #9, 8 at #10, 8 at #11, 7 at #12, 14 at #13, 8 at #14, 5 at #15, 2 at #16, 3 at #17, and 1 at #19
In week 15, we had only 2 votes at #9, 11 at #10, 11 at #11, 12 at #12, 13 at #13, 6 at #14, 2 at #15, 3 at #16, and 1 at #17

In week 14, our votes at #9 were Ben Jones, Chris Murray, Don Williams, Scott Rabalais, and Tom Murphy.
In week 15, Ben Jones and Don Williams still had us at #9. Chris Murray dropped us to #10, Tom Murphy to #11, and Scott Rabalais to #12.

LSU week 14: Chris Murray, Don Williams, and Tom Murphy had them at #10. Scott Rabalais had them at #11. Ben Jones had them at #15.
LSU week 15: Don Williams and Tom Murphy left them at #10. Ben Jones left them at #15. Chris Murray dropped them to #11, and Scott Rabalais moved them to #10.

So, while neither team played, Scott Rabalais dropped WSU 3 spots, and elevated LSU 1 spot, creating a 4 point differential for no apparent reason. Tom Murphy created another 2 points. The others were neutral.

Tom Murphy writes for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in Little Rock, and went to Louisiana Tech.

Scott Rabalais writes for the Baton Rouge Advocate. He's the author of "The Fighting Tigers 1993-2008: Into a New Century of LSU Football". He's a former senior writer for TigerDroppings.com, the ESPN-affiliated website for LSU. And he spends a lot of time writing about LSU football.

But I'm sure it's just coincidence that these two helped create space between us and LSU.

You’re never going to take bias out of polls and rankings. Sports writers are sports fans first, most didn’t grow up following politics and studying civil war history, they yelled at their TVs watching their favorite teams. While there are varying degrees of homerism, I’m fine with a team getting snubbed here and there as long as there is reasonable doubt.

 

[Flatlandcoug]

You’re never going to take bias out of polls and rankings. Sports writers are sports fans first, most didn’t grow up following politics and studying civil war history, they yelled at their TVs watching their favorite teams. While there are varying degrees of homerism, I’m fine with a team getting snubbed here and there as long as there is reasonable doubt.

Bias in the poll is natural and it's the reason that it's important to have writers from around the entire country voting in the AP poll. Overall, I think the AP poll treated us pretty fairly after week 8 last year. Here is our week by week AP ranking:

Week 1: unranked
Week 2: 37 (1-0)
Week 3: 38 (2-0)
Week 4: 41 (3-0)
Week 5: unranked (3-1 USC loss)
Week 6: 32 (4-1 beat Utah)
Week 7: 28 (5-1)
Week 8: 25 (5-1 bye week)
Week 9: 14 (6-1 beat #12 Oregon)
Week 10: 10 (7-1 beat #24 Stanford)
Week 11: 10 (8-1)
Week 12: 8 (9-1)
Week 13: 7 (10-1)
Week 14: 12 (10-2 lost AC)
Week 15: 12 (championship week)
Final Poll: 10 (11-2 won Alamo Bowl

When you look at the poll, we started the poll unranked by virtue of the off-season chaos. We beat what was supposed to be a decent Wyoming team and got a small amount of attention. Two more creampuffs did nothing for our ranking and the loss to USC (who was already struggling) knocked us out of the "also receiving votes" category. The Utah win got us back on the map. Having Gameday in Pullman combined with a big win over Oregon yielded an 11 spot jump for us. For all the talk of conspiracies, 6-1 Iowa was 4 spots behind us that week. The Stanford win yielded another 4 point jump.

After that, it was tricky because frankly, there weren't a whole lot of upsets late in the season. In the week 11 poll, LSU was the only team that lost and they dropped 5 spots and that put them one spot ahead of us. The entire Top 10 won the next week but we jumped two spots over LSU and Ohio State even though they didn't lose. I'm betting their fans were pissed that week. In week 13, West Virginia was the only team in front of us that lost (they fell 5 spots). In week 14, we lost the Apple Cup to the mutts. We fell 5 spots, which is in line with what had happened to LSU and West Virginia. FWIW, Ohio State fell 9 spots when they got whipped by Purdue.

Given the perception of our conference and the fact that we played poorly enough against USC to let the referees help decide that game (our pass defense was terrible that night), I think our team was treated pretty decent this year. When there was a brief discussion on pre-season polls in a different thread, our position in the polls now demonstrates why preseason polls matter. If we had started out #20 this year, we might be #6 in this season's final poll. Worrying about individual writers is missing the bigger picture conversation about how important the starting point is. For all that we might have had a couple writers showing bias here or there, we jumped LSU and Ohio State in the Top 10 when they didn't lose. Again, I'm guessing their fans were calling BS on that. Given our late loss to UW, #10 is about right. If we don't like that....we need to win the AC.

 

[roses04]

From what I read about the polls, the Cougs got the fewest amount of votes from the voters in the Western states, overall the East Coast and South respected the Cougs more than the voters in our own backyard.

 

[95coug]

From what I read about the polls, the Cougs got the fewest amount of votes from the voters in the Western states, overall the East Coast and South respected the Cougs more than the voters in our own backyard.

I don't think that's really true. Our highest votes came from well east of the Rockies...but our lowest votes did too. I'd say we actually got little respect from the area east of the Mississippi - only 8 voters in that area had us above #10, while 18 had us below (16 of those had us at 12 or below).

7 voters put us at #6 or #7. None of those were within what I'd consider our footprint - 2 were from Kansas, 1 each from Alabama, West Virginia, Mississippi, Texas, and Nebraska. It's a little strange to me that our highest votes (2 at #6) came from Tuscaloosa and Morgantown.

But...our lowest votes came from even further east. 11 voters put us between #13 and #15. Only one of those was from our footprint (Hawaii), and he had us at 13. The others were from Florida (2), Louisiana, Wisconsin, Georgia, Kentucky, New Jersey, Ohio, and Alabama. 19 voters had us at #12 or lower - all but 2 of those were from east of the MIssissippi.

Of the 61 voters, 13 are within what I'd consider our footprint:

​

Brian Howell, Daily Camera (Boulder, CO)
Chris Murray, Nevada Sports Net (Reno)
Jim Alexander, Riverside Press-Enterprise (CA)
Gary Horowitz, Statesman Journal (Salem, OR)
Robert Gagliardi, Wyoming Tribune Eagle (Cheyenne)
Tony Parks, 1280 AM KZNS (Salt Lake City)
Dave Southorn, Idaho Statesman (Boise)
Adam Jude, Seattle Times
Joey Kaufman, Southern California News Group (Anaheim)
Jon Wilner, San Jose Mercury News
Michael Lev, Arizona Daily Star (Tucson)
Steve Virgen, Albuquerque Journal
Ferd Lewis, Honolulu Star-Advertiser

3 ranked us #8
3 ranked us #9
1 ranked us #10
4 ranked us #11
1 ranked us #12
1 ranked us #13

Among the entire voting pool, here's how we ranked:

2 at #6
5 at #7 (2 Kansas, 1 Nebraska, 1 Texas, 1 Mississippi)
7 at #8 (the 3 within our footprint, plus 1 each from Ohio, Texas, Georgia, and Iowa)
8 at #9 (2 from footprint, plus 1 each from Ohio, NC, NY, Mass, and Indiana)
12 at #10 (footprint plus 2 Michigan, 2 NC, 1 each from TX, PA, MD, LA, TN, AR)
8 at #11 (footprint plus 1 each from TN, IL, TX, OK)
8 at #12 (footprint plus 1 each from MN, SC, PA, VA, CT, FL, and Rece Davis)
7 at #13 (footprint plus 1 each from LA, WI, GA, KY, NJ, and OH)
3 at #14 (2 from Florida, 1 AL)
1 at #15 (IN)

Using the entire pool, our average ranking was 10.279
Using the pool outside our footprint, average ranking was 10.354
For the 13 voters inside our footprint, average ranking was 10.000

So, Voters within the footprint had a narrower range (8-13) than outside (6-15). A majority of them had us within 1 spot of our actual finish (61.5%), compared to only 41.7% of those outside the footprint.