The public nature of the poll means the media's ballots are highly scrutinized. Each week, College Poll Tracker posts individual ballots. The site is also sortable by school, so one can see where everyone ranked a particular school.
Using the site's data, I'm bringing back a concept introduced by the now-defunct Pollspeak: extreme ballots. Essentially, voters rank teams higher/lower than others, and the extreme voters are even more bold with their ballot.
On a team basis, the schools with the most disagreement among voters in this week's AP top 25 (in order): Marshall, Ole Miss, Colorado State, Oklahoma and Missouri. And the least: Oregon, Alabama, Baylor, Mississippi State and Florida State.
But back to the individual voters. It's a lot more fun when a name/face is put to the vote. Here's who I found to be the top five extremists in this week's AP top 25:
1. Jon Wilner. Those that read Pollspeak last year knew Wilner was one of the more forward-thinking or crazy voters, depending on your viewpoint. In this week's poll, he's got undefeated Florida State No. 6. Vegas and analytics using margin of victory would agree with him, but no other voter has the Seminoles outside the top four. Wilner also has USC 20th, giving the Trojans six of their eight points in the poll.
2. Josh Kendall. Kendall's Top 7 is something else. He's got five extreme teams in those slots alone. (TCU 2, Ohio State 3, Alabama 4, Oregon 5 and Mississippi State 7).
3. Drew Sharp. Sharp's ballot isn't kind to the Big Ten, which is a little surprising considering he's based in Detroit. Nobody has Michigan State (19), Wisconsin (18) or Ohio State (10) lower than him.
4. Eric Hansen. Hansen has seven extreme teams, tied for the AP poll lead along with Kendall. He has a soft spot for Louisville (No. 16), which just beat Notre Dame (his beat coverage). Hansen has had them ranked higher than any other voter three weeks running.
5. Logan Lowery. Lowery's only got two extreme teams, which is a lot fewer than most. Still, he's the only person to rank Central Florida, and he had the Knights higher than anyone this preseason (No. 10). Lowery's also got ASU No. 21, three spots lower than anyone else.
Below, I've got the full list of voters. The rating I used is a measure of extremeness. The number in parentheses is where the voter ranked the team. You'd be surprised, but no two voters were exactly alike and none mimicked the end result from the AP top 25. Many people picked the same top 25, just in different orders. Nate Sandell had 17 exact matches with the AP's top 25, while two people had just one.
| Voter Name | Rating | # of Extreme Teams | Exact AP Matches | Most Extreme Team | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 | #7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jon Wilner | 1.427 | 6 | 5 | USC (20) | Utah (22) | Florida State (6) | Oklahoma (13) | Arizona State (18) | Miss. St. (2) | |
| Josh Kendall | 1.318 | 7 | 2 | West Virginia (24) | Arkansas (18) | Ohio State (3) | TCU (2) | Oregon (5) | Miss. St. (7) | Alabama (4) |
| Drew Sharp | 1.127 | 6 | 2 | Michigan State (19) | Wisconsin (18) | Ohio State (10) | Clemson (17) | Georgia Tech (12) | Florida State (4) | |
| Eric Hansen | 1.050 | 7 | 5 | Louisville (16) | LSU (19) | Missouri (23) | Miss. St. (2) | Wisconsin (17) | Colorado St. (NR) | Georgia Tech (20) |
| Logan Lowery | 0.974 | 2 | 9 | Central Florida (25) | Arizona State (21) | |||||
| Eric Avidon | 0.947 | 2 | 4 | Texas A&M (24) | Michigan State (14) | |||||
| Scott Nulph | 0.935 | 4 | 2 | Miss. St. (7) | Marshall (11) | Arizona (17) | Ole Miss (NR) | |||
| Chuck McGill | 0.872 | 3 | 4 | Memphis (25) | Ohio State (3) | Arkansas (21) | ||||
| Joey Knight | 0.856 | 3 | 5 | Utah (23) | Ohio State (4) | Arkansas (22) | ||||
| Adam Sparks | 0.854 | 1 | 8 | Duke (20) | ||||||
| Tom Murphy | 0.845 | 4 | 7 | LSU (19) | Arkansas (20) | Miss. St. (2) | Colorado St. (NR) | |||
| Bob Asmussen | 0.836 | 5 | 6 | Nebraska (23) | Kansas State (16) | Arizona (17) | Georgia Tech (20) | Ole Miss (13) | ||
| Ed Johnson | 0.833 | 4 | 1 | Baylor (3) | Utah (24) | Oklahoma (14) | Florida State (4) | |||
| Iliana Limon Romero | 0.814 | 3 | 1 | Auburn (22) | Georgia (13) | Boise State (20) | ||||
| Kyle Ringo | 0.806 | 1 | 4 | Nebraska (22) | ||||||
| Scott Wolf | 0.792 | 4 | 12 | UCLA (14) | Arizona (18) | Oklahoma (NR) | Auburn (12) | |||
| Kirk Bohls | 0.776 | 1 | 4 | LSU (18) | ||||||
| Grant Ramey | 0.740 | 0 | 5 | None | ||||||
| Rob Long | 0.737 | 2 | 8 | UCLA (13) | Nebraska (24) | |||||
| Chadd Cripe | 0.737 | 1 | 5 | Georgia Tech (20) | ||||||
| Doug Lesmerises | 0.736 | 1 | 5 | Oregon (1) | ||||||
| Mike Sorensen | 0.733 | 2 | 4 | Boise State (20) | Arkansas (22) | |||||
| Kellis Robinett | 0.718 | 3 | 6 | TCU (2) | Georgia Tech (20) | Colorado St. (15) | ||||
| Seth Emerson | 0.715 | 0 | 5 | None | ||||||
| Adam Zucker | 0.709 | 0 | 7 | None | ||||||
| Steve Sipple | 0.709 | 2 | 8 | Clemson (17) | Ole Miss (NR) | |||||
| Keith Sargeant | 0.708 | 2 | 6 | Memphis (25) | Ohio State (4) | |||||
| Chris Murray | 0.695 | 2 | 5 | Arizona State (6) | Kansas State (15) | |||||
| Sam Werner | 0.684 | 1 | 5 | Duke (24) | ||||||
| Donald Heath | 0.676 | 1 | 7 | Alabama (4) | ||||||
| John Silver | 0.670 | 2 | 7 | Memphis (25) | Boise State (19) | |||||
| Jay Binkley | 0.668 | 2 | 7 | Missouri (11) | Georgia (6) | |||||
| Brett McMurphy | 0.664 | 2 | 6 | Boise State (20) | Auburn (12) | |||||
| Bill Rabinowitz | 0.660 | 1 | 6 | Wisconsin (10) | ||||||
| Garry Smits | 0.659 | 3 | 6 | Ohio State (4) | Georgia Tech (20) | TCU (8) | ||||
| Michael Lev | 0.629 | 1 | 5 | Missouri (24) | ||||||
| Tommy Deas | 0.621 | 1 | 6 | Nebraska (24) | ||||||
| Ross Dellenger | 0.615 | 0 | 7 | None | ||||||
| Larry Vaught | 0.584 | 2 | 11 | USC (24) | Oregon (1) | |||||
| Charles Davis | 0.566 | 2 | 9 | Wisconsin (9) | Louisville (19) | |||||
| Brent Axe | 0.560 | 0 | 5 | None | ||||||
| Pete DiPrimio | 0.541 | 1 | 13 | Colorado St. (15) | ||||||
| Jim Polzin | 0.540 | 0 | 12 | None | ||||||
| Garland Gillen | 0.535 | 0 | 5 | None | ||||||
| Adam Jude | 0.522 | 0 | 5 | None | ||||||
| Gary Horowitz | 0.522 | 0 | 7 | None | ||||||
| Daniel Berk | 0.517 | 0 | 8 | None | ||||||
| Tim Griffin | 0.515 | 1 | 11 | Boise State (19) | ||||||
| Doug Doughty | 0.508 | 0 | 10 | None | ||||||
| Ken Medlin | 0.497 | 0 | 8 | None | ||||||
| Steve Batterson | 0.483 | 0 | 7 | None | ||||||
| Robert Cessna | 0.459 | 0 | 11 | None | ||||||
| Nick Baumgardner | 0.426 | 0 | 7 | None | ||||||
| Mike Herndon | 0.424 | 0 | 11 | None | ||||||
| Nate Sandell | 0.422 | 0 | 17 | None | ||||||
| Jimmy Burch | 0.420 | 0 | 8 | None | ||||||
| Matt McCoy | 0.412 | 0 | 12 | None | ||||||
| John Shinn | 0.390 | 0 | 16 | None | ||||||
| Ferd Lewis | 0.386 | 0 | 13 | None | ||||||
| Scott Hamilton | 0.336 | 0 | 10 | None |
