Circling Back: Update On AP Poll Behavior Towards Michigan

Submitted by LSAClassOf2000 on

CIRCLING BACK: UPDATE ON AP POLL BEHAVIOR             

Those of you that look at the polls as they are released each Sunday know that Michigan did in fact fall out of the Top 25 in the AP poll after the Penn State game. I thought, however, that this might be a good time to circle back and look at the overall picture now that we have lived through another full month of the season.

The summary data is below:

 

TOTAL VOTES

477

AVERAGE RANK (ALL VOTES)

16.836

MEDIAN

17

MODE

16

STD. DEV.

3.861

VARIANCE

14.908

HIGHEST VOTE

3

LOWEST VOTE

unranked

 

The average position of Michigan’s AP vote has fallen from 14.597 to 16.836 in the last month, so basically two full points, which is considerable. The median ranking is 17thand for the time being, the mode is still 16thin the poll. The variance in the votes has increased significantly as well, from about 10 positions to nearly 15 positions now. Part of that is more votes, part of it is performance.

Below is the change in average position each week. I should state at this point that one thing I have done here is count the votes which put us in the range of the Top 25 for purposes of calculating these averages since there were still reasonably significant portions of the voters which did rank us. Still, the last two weeks are likely better stated as approximations.

 photo FootballAPWeek9AvgChange_zps05479c72.png

Since the preseason poll, we have had quite the ride, as you can see.

Here is the tracking of the average ranking versus actual ranking and their differential. Again, the same note here – the last two weeks are approximate because of the number of “unranked” votes. I am still not sure exactly where I want to go with that differential, which I had start calling “The Hater Index”, but if it is showing anything here, it is showing that the voters are somehow kinder than the actual formula for calculating rank perhaps.

 photo FootballAPAvgRanking_zps2e01cd68.png

Here are the weekly distributions. These do show the number of occurrences of “unranked”, and indeed, you can see that a couple weeks ago, I started putting the actual counts on the graph. I have a separate table which contains the entire distribution, so if you are interested in precise figures, I can make them available and the next poll check will include numbers on all weekly distributions.

 photo FootballAPWeek1_zps47f75793.png  photo FootballAPWeek2_zps51bae348.png  photo FootballAPWeek3_zpsaa1b827d.png  photo FootballAPWeek4_zps7091dce2.png  photo FootballAPWeek5_zps7c8a16e4.png  photo FootballAPWeek6_zpsc7acf376.png  photo FootballAPWeek7_zps884c79a9.png  photo FootballAPWeek8_zps3b91cdb2.png  photo FootballAPWeek9_zps56430204.png

Here is the cumulative distribution of all votes (apologies in advance for the sizing - I can provide the direct link if anyone wants it):

 photo FootballAPWeek9VoteDist_zps93588059.png

Comments

Wolfman

October 26th, 2013 at 5:43 PM ^

We've played like shit and I don't need graphs, charts or anything else to tell me otherwise. Our only "quality" wins was vs. ND who has no "quality" wins of their own, except perhaps against Sparty which was accomplished via 4 Pass Interference calls, three of which were false.  At this point, I would not care if M were rated right alongside Akron, UCONN and PSU.  That has been half our season and we looked pretty shitty coming out of those with two wins and an unforgiveable loss. This, PSU, is a team that gave up near a half-hundred to IN the week before we played them.  If this team thinks it's good enough to show up and win then we've got two problems. No. 1 would be, of course, the team. No. 2 would be the coaching that affects such an attitude. This team has talent and it's not using it.  If we play up to our abilities we're top 15. We do have some problems that I hope the remainder of the season will be corrected. If so, as PF says above, we'll have nothing to worry about. We know where we are as a team and it matters not to me if we're top 25 or top 50. What matters to me is we should be top 15 and we're not.