AP Polls Individual Ballots- Interesting

Submitted by swarwick33 on

I was reading an article on ESPN, and was directed to a link which allows you to see the individual polls of all 60 voters. The state of Michigan has 2 people voting, Angelique Chengelis (The Detroit News) and Joe Rexrode (Lansing State Journal). Angelique has Michigan ranked 22, Rexrode has them ranked 24. Michigan clocked in at #23 in the poll.

Here is the link- http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/specials/top25_front/voters.html?SIT…

After looking at all of the polls here are some quick observations.

-Michigan was ranked in 46 of 60 polls. 6 Southern polls, 3 Western polls, 4 Midwest Polls, and 1 East Poll (W.Virginia FWIW) excluded them.
-They got some nice national love. Of the 4 national media members with votes, all of them ranked Mich. Craig James (ABC) and Tom Hart (CBS CSN) had them ranked 12th and 11th respectively.
-Doug Lesmerises (Clev, OH) had Mich ranked 10th

Just thought this was a fun way to see how people around the country view different teams. I really wish this was the case with the Coaches Poll too.

Boo-erns

September 22nd, 2009 at 2:07 PM ^

It would be pretty cool if someone figured out how to visualize this on a map. Im gonna try and figure out a good way in the next few weeks when ive got some time

60blue

September 22nd, 2009 at 4:08 PM ^

Not sure what or how you were planning on doing it, but PHP has a heatmap class you can use that would make it fairly easy. http://www.labsmedia.com/clickheat/heatmap.html

I haven't looked at this closely enough but it seems to me the hardest part is grabbing the poll results and info (poller, location, etc) every week. I'd hate for it to be a manual entry every week, that would be painful. Really, this is the type of thing that AP should be doing themselves or at least opening an API to the information to let third parties do it.

Let me know if you want some help with this, it sounds like a cool project and I do like to code! (nerd)

Six Zero

September 22nd, 2009 at 2:09 PM ^

nice research.

It reminds me of something that someone told me when Rich was hired. Basically a friend told me not to wear the UM gear while traveling through West Virginia. After my initial barrage of jokes (why on earth would I want to travel through West Virginia, I already stick out with all my teeth, wouldn't the sound of my mechanical horse scare them away, etc.), I asked why. He said "Because nobody holds a grudge like a West Virginian."

I laughed it off and said they'll be fine and one day they'll forget Rich was even there, and he said "No way. Those people bring hate to a new level. They'll hate Rich Rod til the day he dies, and his shiny new school too."

Maize_and_Drew

September 22nd, 2009 at 2:34 PM ^

I'm not surprised that the West Virginia voter left Michigan out. West Virginians are still angry over Rich Rod leaving, just visit one of their message boards sometime. I'm interested though to see his vote next week should Michigan beat Indiana.

Another voter I found to be quite homerish is this guy: Rich Kaipust Omaha (NE) World-Herald. He too left Michigan out, but somehow managed to put Nebraska at #25. What? My guess is that this is somehow related to 1997.

Tha Stunna

September 22nd, 2009 at 4:07 PM ^

I'm not excited about high poll rankings we don't deserve, and other people shouldn't be either (unless it's after the bowls). Yeah, the high rankings are probably from "resume" type voters, but we have many, many chances to lose still, and I still don't see us as better than OSU.

tomhagan

September 22nd, 2009 at 7:59 PM ^

Today, ESPN compared Doug Lesmerises poll vs the actual poll.... then put Herbstreit on there to talk about it... according to Herb, Lesmerises ranks based on that week only, not on the past or potential of the team and tries to keep biases out of it so one team could shoot up or shoot down based on that one week performance...