AP Ballot breakdown for week 7 (AP Poll 8)

© Copyright 2006, Paul Kislanko

In the Ballot comparison the teams are ordered by the best rank for which a majority of voters voted the team at least that high (see the ballot summary below). In other words, the 10th team was listed by at least 33 voters somewhere between 1st and 10th, and the ballots are listed left-to-right by the number of teams for which their ranking contributed to the teams' order. Within the table the cells corresponding to ranks for team i by voter j where the voter ranked the team worse than the majority did are bold.

As in most polls, as the season progresses the measurement trend is toward increasing consensus.

• 35 teams were listed on at least one ballot (down 1 from last week)
• 14 teams were in at least one voter's top ten (down 3)
• 25 teams were on a majority of top 25 ballots (up 1)
• 18 teams are in every voter's top 25 (up 1)

Arkansas was left off eight ballots after beating then #2 Auburn 27-10, but was on every ballot after beating a 1-AA team 63-7. Guess some folks needed convincing, and are easily convinced. Rutgers is on all but one ballot.

Ballot Counts by Rank - AP Poll # 8
15 Oct 2006 2:57pm (Central)

Team #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10 #11 #12 #13 #14 #15 #16 #17 #18 #19 #20 #21 #22 #23 #24 #25
Ohio State 63 2                                            
Michigan   40 19 5 1                                      
Southern California   12 23 22 5 2 1                                  
West Virginia 2 11 20 22 5 3 1   1                              
Texas     2 8 38 12 5                                  
Louisville       3 7 23 5 12 7 3 3 1 1                      
Auburn       3 1 12 17 10 9 6 3 3       1                
Tennessee     1   3 7 17 12 15 9 1                          
Florida       1 5 5 13 12 8 8 8 4 1                      
Notre Dame           1 3 8 13 20 6 10 3   1                  
California       1     2 8 10 11 22 7 2 1 1                  
Clemson                   3 17 20 13 6 4 1     1          
Georgia Tech                     2 6 17 20 9 6 2   2 1        
LSU               1   2   8 13 12 12 6 3 4 3     1    
Arkansas             1 2 2 3 3 4 8 6 11 6 5 5 4 2 2 1    
Oregon                       1 1 6 14 22 7 8 4 1 1      
Nebraska                       1 1 7 4 8 13 11 9 3 5   3  
Boise St                         4 2 1 8 15 8 7 10 5 4 1  
Rutgers                           1 2 4 4 9 10 10 11 5 1 3 4
Oklahoma                           2 2 2 9 6 11 8 7 7 2 2 1
Wisconsin                         1 2 3   2 6 6 9 16 9 4 3
Boston College                             1 1 3 6 6 12 13 8 4 5 1
Texas A&M                                       1   11 19 8 4
Missouri                                       3 1 2 6 12 20
Wake Forest                                       1 1 5 4 15 10
Team #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10 #11 #12 #13 #14 #15 #16 #17 #18 #19 #20 #21 #22 #23 #24 #25
Pittsburgh                                     1   1 5 8 4 9
Iowa                                 1       2 3 5 6 3
Georgia                                   2   2   2 5 4 4
Florida St                                 1     1   2   2 3
Miami-Florida                                     1 1     1   1
Virginia Tech                                             1 1 1
Alabama                                             1   1
Tulsa                                                 1
BYU                                                 1
Purdue                                                 1

There are two interesting situations in the top ten where the order depends upon how you tally the votes. Southern Cal is third by both Borda (1465) and Bucklin (35 of 65 voters have the Trojans at least as high as third.) West Virginia is just six points behind in points and 33 of 65 voters having the Mountaineers third or better. But if you look ballot by ballot, 33 voters had WVa higher than USC and 32 had the Trojans higher. This could be very interesting if we were talking about #2 vs #3 in the final Harris and/or USA Today polls.

The other interesting situation involves the #7/8/9 teams, Tennessee (1179 points), Auburn (1176) and Florida (1143). Now, Florida beat Tennessee so that doesn't look right. And sure enough, 36 voters have the Gators ranked higher than the Vols, 54 have Auburn higher than Florida, but Tennessee is ranked higher than Auburn 34 to 31. This is a case that Bucklin handles a little better - 33 voters had Auburn but neither of the other two as high as seventh. Majorities had Tennessee and Florida both as high as eighth. If the first tiebreaker for Bucklin is head-to-head, the order becomes [7] Auburn, [8] Florida 36 [9] Tennessee 29, which is consistent with the game results.

Pairwise Matrix for Associated Press Poll #8
(Only teams on a majority of ballots listed)
15 Oct 2006 2:57pm (Central)

Pts Indx Team 1 2 4 3 5 6 8 7 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 20 19 21 22 23 24 25
1623 1 Ohio State   65 63 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65
1528 2 Michigan     49 50 64 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65
1459 4 West Virginia 2 16   33 55 62 63 62 62 65 64 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65
1465 3 Southern Cal   15 32   58 63 64 65 64 65 64 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65
1355 5 Texas   1 10 7   56 58 61 58 65 64 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65
1223 6 Louisville     3 2 9   45 40 42 57 56 63 65 63 63 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65
1179 8 Tennessee     2 1 7 20   34 29 53 59 65 65 64 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65
1176 7 Auburn     3   4 25 31   54 52 48 62 64 65 55 65 64 65 65 65 65 64 65 65 65
1143 9 Florida     3 1 7 23 36 11   48 48 61 65 65 60 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65
1042 10 Notre Dame           8 12 13 17   41 55 65 62 55 65 64 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65
1027 11 California     1 1 1 9 6 17 17 24   55 60 62 59 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65
885 12 Clemson           2   3 4 10 10   53 51 49 62 64 61 64 64 64 64 65 65 65
772 13 Georgia Tech               1     5 12   36 40 54 58 57 61 62 62 65 65 65 65
751 14 LSU           2 1     3 3 14 29   35 51 53 56 64 61 59 61 65 64 65
734 15 Arkansas           2   10 5 10 6 16 25 30   43 45 51 55 56 59 65 65 65 65
639 16 Oregon                       3 11 14 22   42 50 60 58 58 61 65 65 65
555 17 Nebraska               1   1   1 7 12 20 23   36 49 50 51 53 65 65 63
519 18 Boise St                       4 8 9 14 15 29   43 47 47 52 64 63 65
394 20 Oklahoma                       1 4 1 10 5 16 22   35 37 40 56 55 58
400 19 Rutgers                       1 3 4 9 7 15 18 30   40 43 60 61 61
366 21 Wisconsin                       1 3 6 6 7 14 18 28 25   34 60 56 59
330 22 Boston College               1       1   4   4 12 13 24 22 30   54 56 56
127 23 Texas A&M                                   1 8 5 3 10   42 36
93 24 Missouri                           1       2 9 4 8 7 15   32
83 25 Wake Forest                                 2   4 4 3 9 19 27
Pts Indx Team 1 2 4 3 5 6 8 7 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 20 19 21 22 23 24 25