This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/Perryapsis on 2025-08-14 12:20:00+00:00.
TABLE
HOW TO READ THIS TABLE
Teams are ranked in their order from the Logo (note for mobile users: everywhere you see a “Logo” link, that means that inline flair is shown on old.reddit.com/r/cfb) AP Poll for Week 1 (That is, the pre-season rankigns that apply during Week 1 games). The column to the right of the team name shows the number of points that team received using the AP Poll’s Borda count rules. The following two columns show information about each team’s previous and upcoming games. The following columns show how many votes for each ranking the team received. The ‘U’ column shows how many voters left the team unranked (off their ballots entirely). Gridlines are placed every 5 rows and columns for ease of reading. A thick line is placed below the 25th-ranked team to distinguish “ranked” teams above it to “receiving votes” teams below it.
Some cells are shaded to highlight points of interest. The green diagonal highlights how many voters ranked a team exactly where they ended up in the overall poll. For example, Logo Miami (FL) is ranked 10th in this week’s poll, and 17 voters placed the Hurricanes exactly in their 10th spot. Values for which a team received no votes at that rank are shaded in red, while placements chosen by only exactly one voter are highlighted in blue. Some unique votes are annotated with the name of the corresponding voter. The most common selection (the mode) for each team is shaded yellow unless it matches the team’s rank. Finally, since there are very few votes that ever end up near the top-right or bottom-left of the chart, those cells are filled in with black diagonally as much as possible without covering up any nonzero values. This helps naturally guide the eye while viewing the chart and helps locate the most unusual votes. We lightheartedly call these the “Wilner” diagonals.
Finally, I note violations of the Condorcet Criterion on the bottom left corner of the black space. These occur when Team A is ranked above Team B in the poll, but Team B would win if you ignored the points system and just asked the voters “Which team do you think is better?” I note every instance of this when it would affect the placement of a team in the Top 25, but not necessarily if it only flips teams’ positions in the receiving-votes category.
This season, scores will be highlighted (lowlighted?) in black to indicate a loss instead of using a W/L column. I did this at the end of the season last year, and it was well received, so it returns for this entire season. This way is easier to see at a glance and slightly reduces the clutter on the left side of the table.
COMMENTARY FOR THIS WEEK
Welcome to the 6½th year of the vote distribution table! (When I first tried this in 2019, I didn’t start until mid-season) This table visualizes how many votes each team received for each rank in the Associated Press college football poll. The AP publishes each team’s final ranking and point totals. They also provide individual ballots from each voter, but don’t directly present the data in this way. This table allows you to see how much disagreement (or consensus) there is amongst voters about particular teams.
For returning readers (thank you!), the format hasn’t changed compared to last year. The one addition I’ve made is the teeny tiny number next to the logos of ranked opponents in the schedule columns. I tried to find a balance between making the numbers large enough to read at medium zoom levels, but not so large that they cover the logos or are obnoxious at high zoom levels. Looking at the final product, I’ll probably make them a bit bigger next week, but please let me know what you think.
There is always significant variance at the beginning of the year that trends toward consensus late in the year, and this preseason poll is no exception. The upper Wilner Diagonal is created by Kevin Carter ranking Logo Alabama 23rd, 15 places below their actual rank in the poll. He is joined by Damien Sordelett, who didn’t rank Logo Miami (FL) at all, despite their 10th place overall. On the lower Wilner Diagonal, nobody could beat Sam McKewon, who put Logo Las Vegas 12th. The Rebels only got two other votes from anybody, none higher than 20th. Chris Bishop came close when he put Brigham Young 8th, while the Cougars came up just short of the Top 25.
(To anyone objecting to “Las Vegas” for UNLV and “Brigham Young” for BYU, I don’t use team acronyms. In the past, I’ve done projects involving every single college football team, and you get so many duplicates if you allow acronyms, so I spell everything out. The habit stuck, and now it’s half inside joke and half personality flaw on my part. meme)
The lowest-ranked team to appear on all 65 ballots this week was Logo Louisiana State in 9th. Sordelett’s aforementioned omission of Logo Miami (FL) make them the highest-ranked team to fail to appear on a ballot. Koki Riley (twice), Javon Edmonds, Creg Stephenson, and Jamal St. Cyr cast the only votes for five teams near the bottom.
265 votes (16.3%) matched their team’s rank exactly this week, while there were 117 unique team-rank pairs (7.2%). The most matched team was Logo Texas, as is common for the 1st-place team. The least-matched team was Logo Iowa State, as only three voters placed the Cyclones at exactly 22. The 24 unranked teams received a total of 830 points (3.9%) from 165 votes (10.2%).
The largest gap between two teams is the 285 points (4.4 ranks worth!) between Logo Louisiana State and Logo Miami (FL). For comparison, 285 points above Louisiana State would be good enough to jump to 4th, and 285 points below Miami (FL) would knock you down all the way to 16th. This is the largest gap between two teams that I’ve ever seen since I started keeping track. On the other hand, literally just one point kept Logo Tennessee above Logo Boise State. Also, there are three pairs of teams separated by exactly 5 points: Logo Texas and Logo Penn State, Logo Alabama and Logo Louisiana State, and Logo South Carolina and Logo Michigan. When is the last time three pairs of teams in the Top 25 were separated by the exact same number of points?
As is typical, the most disagreed upon teams are mostly in the high teens (with one exception this week!) and the least disagreed upon teams are near the top. If we take the standard deviation (counting unranked “votes” as 0 points), which may not be the right statistic since the vote distributions are often not normal, we get the following:
| Team | Standard Deviation |
|---|---|
| Logo #18 Oklahoma | 5.55 |
| Logo #13 South Carolina | 5.35 |
| Logo #15 Florida | 5.28 |
| Logo Brigham Young | 5.03 |
| Logo #19 Texas A&M | 4.84 |
| … | … |
| Logo #7 Oregon | 1.88 |
| Logo #3 Ohio State | 1.69 |
| Logo #6 Notre Dame | 1.53 |
| Logo #1 Texas | 1.24 |
| Logo #2 Penn State | 1.19 |
There are a few interesting modes this week. Logo Michigan happens to be tri-modal, with 8 votes each for ranks 11, 15, and 16. Right below them, Logo Florida has a wide spread of votes, so the most common place to put them was “Who?” well above when the table usually reaches that point. Logo Indiana’s mode is 3 ranks above their final rank of 20, and those 10 votes were enough to keep their mode from being unranked.
And finally, as a random observation that doesn’t fit anywhere else, Logo Illinois happens to have three sixes in a row after the intial two.
For as much diagreement as there is this week, there are only a few Condorcet criterion flips in the Top 25. Logo Louisiana State just barely beats Logo Alabama head-to-head. Logo ties Logo Texas A&M at 32 each because Keith Farmer ranked neither team. But the Aggies would not be wise to invoke the criterion, since Logo Indiana would leapfrog them anyway. I also used the criterion where possible to sort out ties in the receiving votes section, so that’s why Logo Nebraska is above Logo Tulane, Logo James Madison is above Logo Memphis, and the tie for 42nd is sorted Logo Navy, then Logo Iowa, and finally Logo Liberty.
LOOKING FORWARD
I always have ideas for how to improve this that I never seem to actually finish. Sometimes it’s from a lack of skill, sometimes a lack of time, and sometimes I lose motivation because it seems like such a small detail that nobody will notice or care. If you have any ideas for things I could do to make this post better, please let me know!
Here’s my grab bag of stuff that I’d like to do … eventually, in no particular order but kinda grouped by topic.
Stuff that used to work once upon a time…
- Identify the l…
Content cut off. Read original on old.reddit.com/…/the_distribution_of_votes_in_the…