Sunday, December 4, 2011

Analyzing the 12/04/2011 AP Poll:

This is the next in the series of analysis posts on the AP poll.  Last week, some fishy things happened that got Oklahoma State closer, this week they get closer yet but even if the AP poll was being used it wouldn't be enough to get Oklahoma State to #2 in the BCS.

To start, here is the summary view chart.  The top-25 teams are listed across the X axis and the top and bottom of the vertical lines for each team indicates the high and low ranking the team has received.



For comparison, here is last week's chart.




We can see that things have tightened up and gotten a lot more consistent in the top-7.  Last week teams ranked as low at 19 on a ballot (Virginia Tech) were in the top-7, this week the worst vote of the top-7 is 11 (USC).  What happened?  Virginia Tech which clearly wasn't a top-10 team let alone top-5 (and my computer could have told you that having them #24 last week) lost and where 8 teams got 3rd place votes last week, only 4 do this week.

We do still see the Craig James idiot factor in the chart when we see Boise State's range being 4th to 23rd place votes, Craig voting them 23rd.  Worse, he has them behind Houston (whom he had 5th the last two weeks) and Southern Miss!  When Houston was undefeated, I could see a potential argument for having them ahead of Boise, but they lost to a weaker team (even he has Southern Miss behind TCU) and by 21 points, while Boise State lost by just 1 and had a kick for the win.  Further, Houston played a much weaker schedule, 61.2 vs 65.5 by my computer and they played an FCS team, and their best wins were over an 8-4 Tulsa team (#36) and 8-4 Louisiana Tech.  Boise on the other hand did not play an FCS team and had wins over 10-3 Georgia (#11), 8-4 Toledo (#34), and the same Tulsa team.  The only reason one might vote Houston ahead is the one common opponent, Tulsa, was beat 48-16 by Tulsa and "only" 41-21 by Boise.  But that is misleading as Boise led 34-0 in the 3rd quarter when Kellen Moore sat down.

But enough of the ranting.  Now we wait for the Harris poll and details on the voting of each.  Look for analysis of them when we have it.

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