I ran a few tests to find out who the most extreme voters were in the Coaches' poll, using the same methodology as I did last month with AP voters. Here were the top five most extreme coaches from the final ballot:
1. Rick Stockstill (Middle Tennessee): Stockstill is a prime example of someone who ranked teams higher that his team faced. Nobody has BYU (lost 27-7), Memphis (lost 36-17), or Marshall (lost 49-14) higher than he does (No. 20, No. 16 and No. 14 respectively). He gave BYU all six of its points in the poll and Memphis 10 of its 18.
2. Frank Beamer (Virginia Tech): Beamer has the most amount of "extreme" teams among those who voted in the poll. He has Ohio State No. 2 in his poll, but the Buckeyes were only No. 2 by default when VT came to town. Beamer's most extreme ranking, though, is having Duke No. 15 (VT beat Duke 17-16). The next highest vote for Duke in the poll was No. 21.
3. Bret Bielema (Arkansas): Bielema was apparently not impressed by the teams that lost in the last week of the season. Nobody has Georgia Tech (19) and Kansas State (18) lower than him and only one person has Arizona (17) lower than he put them.
4. Art Briles (Baylor): Briles is obviously upset with the Big 12 that it promoted TCU and Baylor as co-champs, even though Baylor is the #OneTrueChampion of the Big 12. Any two-team tiebreaker would be settled by head-to-head. He ended up putting the Bears No. 3 (extreme) and TCU No. 5, with Alabama sandwiched between them. Briles' vote for Alabama at No. 4 was the lowest the Crimson Tide received.
5. George O'Leary (UCF): Well, somebody's got to believe in Central Florida. The Knights started 0-2 with losses to Penn State and Missouri, but finished a respectful 9-1. However, that one loss is to Connecticut (2-10), which is about as ugly as a loss can get. O'Leary had UCF No. 21, and the only other vote for UCF was a No. 25 one. O'Leary also has Auburn unranked, which three others do as well.
Other notable rankings/exclusions
-Jimbo Fisher not ranking Georgia, putting Clemson No. 12. I'm just going to assume Fisher forgot about Georgia rather than deliberately leaving them off his ballot. Georgia and Clemson are both 9-3 and the Bulldogs won the head-to-head matchup, so it wouldn't make sense for there to be that much of a difference in the other direction between the schools.
-Mike Gundy ranking TCU No. 1. Mike Gundy was really pulling for the Big 12 co-champs here. The week before TCU didn't have a first-place vote, so Gundy obviously switched his vote. Only a few people have the Horned Frogs in the Top 3, and Gundy's the only person to have them in the Top 2. He also ranked Baylor No. 3 and Oregon No. 5. Outside of his bizarre Top 5, his ballot is actually fairly closely aligned with the poll.
-Ron Turner (FIU) ranking Stanford No. 19. Stanford (7-5) certainly disappointed this season, given the Cardinal's BCS bowl streak, but it could have been better (three losses by a field goal). Turner was the only person to rank Stanford in the final coaches' ballot, and he had them at No. 19. Perhaps he ranked them because of Stanford's last game, a three touchdown wallop over UCLA, but Stanford had two less points in the poll this week than the one prior.
-Apparently, we all decided Michigan State was either the No. 7 or No. 8 team in the country. Only one voter had them different (at No. 10). Of the Top 25, the Spartans had the most conformity among voters. Wisconsin and Missouri had the least.
Conference bias
I was able to produce a ranking of each team by conference fairly easily using Microsoft Excel. For the 36 non-independent teams receiving votes in the poll, 33 of them were positioned higher in the polls by their own conference (this includes coaches voting for themselves). The three teams that were viewed less favorable were Stanford (single vote outside conference), UCLA (10.84 average vs. 10.83 Pac-12) and Wisconsin. 25 of those 33 teams were viewed as most favorable by the league they play in.
List of Extreme Teams
List of Extreme Teams
| Coach | School | Rating | Exact Coaches Matches | # of extremes | Extreme #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 | #7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rick Stockstill | Middle Tennessee | 1.310 | 4 | 4 | BYU (20) | Memphis (16) | Marshall (14) | Miss. St. (11) | |||
| Frank Beamer | Virginia Tech | 1.135 | 4 | 7 | Duke (15) | Miss St (14) | Ohio State (24) | ASU (21) | Nebraska (17) | Alabama (3) | UCLA (20) |
| Bret Bielema | Arkansas | 1.051 | 5 | 5 | Georgia Tech (19) | Kansas State (18) | Nebraska (16) | Arizona (17) | Louisville (14) | ||
| Art Briles | Baylor | 0.965 | 1 | 6 | Alabama (4) | Georgia Tech (17) | Louisville (12) | Baylor (3) | Georgia (20) | Auburn (NR) | |
| George O'Leary | Central Florida | 0.947 | 4 | 3 | UCF (21) | Arizona (18) | Auburn (NR) | ||||
| Mike MacIntyre | Colorado | 0.938 | 5 | 4 | Air Force (24) | Duke (21) | Louisville (NR) | Auburn (NR) | |||
| Tommy Tuberville | Cincinnati | 0.933 | 6 | 3 | Cincinnati (20) | Georgia Tech (16) | Missouri (22) | ||||
| Blake Anderson | Arkansas State | 0.911 | 4 | 3 | Ole Miss (25) | Northern Illinois (19) | Auburn (9) | ||||
| Ron Turner | Florida International | 0.905 | 7 | 4 | Stanford (19) | Wisconsin (NR) | USC (21) | UCLA (20) | |||
| Les Miles | LSU | 0.857 | 3 | 3 | ASU (23) | Arizona (17) | LSU (18) | ||||
| Troy Calhoun | Air Force | 0.809 | 5 | 1 | Air Force (22) | ||||||
| Gary Pinkel | Missouri | 0.800 | 7 | 4 | Michigan State (10) | Kansas State (18) | Wisconsin (8) | Miss. St. (11) | |||
| Norm Chow | Hawaii | 0.791 | 7 | 4 | Marshall (17) | Colorado State (24) | Missouri (NR) | Wisconsin (NR) | |||
| Jimbo Fisher | Florida State | 0.788 | 8 | 4 | Georgia (NR) | Northern Illinois (22) | Louisville (13) | Clemson (12) | |||
| Steve Spurrier | South Carolina | 0.785 | 8 | 2 | Colorado State (23) | Louisville (NR) | |||||
| Todd Monken | Southern Miss. | 0.780 | 5 | 2 | Nebraska (16) | Georgia (20) | |||||
| Al Golden | Miami | 0.771 | 5 | 0 | |||||||
| Dan McCarney | North Texas | 0.747 | 7 | 0 | |||||||
| Todd Berry | Lousiana - Monroe | 0.747 | 5 | 2 | Baylor (3) | Florida State (5) | |||||
| Rocky Long | San Diego State | 0.743 | 6 | 1 | Utah (19) | ||||||
| Craig Bohl | Wyoming | 0.733 | 4 | 1 | Boise State (10) | ||||||
| Terry Bowden | Akron | 0.732 | 3 | 1 | Oklahoma (16) | ||||||
| Kevin Wilson | Indiana | 0.722 | 6 | 3 | Clemson (NR) | ASU (9) | LSU (18) | ||||
| Justin Fuente | Memphis | 0.710 | 5 | 2 | Memphis (22) | Auburn (NR) | |||||
| Bobby Hauck | UNLV | 0.703 | 5 | 1 | Colorado State (24) | ||||||
| Rod Carey | Northern Illinois | 0.703 | 4 | 2 | Northern Illinois (20) | Louisville (NR) | |||||
| Charlie Strong | Texas | 0.699 | 6 | 1 | TCU (3) | ||||||
| David Bailiff | Rice | 0.688 | 6 | 1 | Cincinnati (23) | ||||||
| Bo Pelini | Nebraska | 0.671 | 10 | 2 | Minnesota (19) | Louisville (NR) | |||||
| Brady Hoke | Michigan | 0.662 | 3 | 0 | |||||||
| Mike Gundy | Oklahoma State | 0.654 | 9 | 3 | TCU (1) | Oregon (5) | Baylor (3) | ||||
| Chris Petersen | Washington | 0.654 | 8 | 3 | UCLA (21) | Oklahoma (19) | Missouri (22) | ||||
| Dino Babers | Bowling Green | 0.648 | 7 | 1 | Utah (21) | ||||||
| Urban Meyer | Ohio State | 0.635 | 10 | 0 | |||||||
| Matt Rhule | Temple | 0.633 | 7 | 0 | |||||||
| Nick Saban | Alabama | 0.628 | 8 | 1 | LSU (18) | ||||||
| Steve Sarkisian | USC | 0.605 | 6 | 2 | USC (19) | Utah (20) | |||||
| Frank Solich | Ohio | 0.595 | 6 | 2 | Minnesota (21) | UCLA (20) | |||||
| Mike Riley | Oregon State | 0.593 | 4 | 1 | Alabama (3) | ||||||
| Gary Patterson | TCU | 0.584 | 11 | 2 | Oklahoma (18) | TCU (3) | |||||
| Bronco Mendenhall | BYU | 0.583 | 9 | 0 | |||||||
| Tim DeRuyter | Fresno State | 0.575 | 3 | 1 | Alabama (3) | ||||||
| Dennis Franchione | Texas State | 0.575 | 9 | 1 | Mississippi State (11) | ||||||
| Larry Blakeney | Troy | 0.569 | 7 | 2 | Missouri (24) | Minnesota (21) | |||||
| Jeff Quinn | Buffalo | 0.567 | 9 | 0 | |||||||
| Bill Blankenship | Tulsa | 0.555 | 8 | 0 | |||||||
| Larry Fedora | North Carolina | 0.546 | 7 | 1 | Mississippi State (12) | ||||||
| Bob Stoops | Oklahoma | 0.545 | 11 | 1 | TCU (3) | ||||||
| Dabo Swinney | Clemson | 0.537 | 6 | 0 | |||||||
| Matt Campbell | Toledo | 0.519 | 7 | 0 | |||||||
| Larry Coker | UTSA | 0.519 | 7 | 0 | |||||||
| Jerry Kill | Minnesota | 0.519 | 6 | 1 | Minnesota (21) | ||||||
| Paul Johnson | Georgia Tech | 0.518 | 6 | 0 | |||||||
| Brian Kelly | Notre Dame | 0.510 | 10 | 1 | Alabama (3) | ||||||
| Mark Richt | Georgia | 0.493 | 9 | 0 | |||||||
| David Cutcliffe | Duke | 0.491 | 6 | 0 | |||||||
| Rich Rodriguez | Arizona | 0.475 | 9 | 0 | |||||||
| Mark Dantonio | Michigan State | 0.475 | 11 | 0 | |||||||
| Mike Leach | Washington State | 0.469 | 8 | 0 | |||||||
| Bob Diaco | Connecticut | 0.457 | 9 | 0 | |||||||
| Ken Niumatalolo | Navy | 0.417 | 10 | 0 |
(The rating is a formula I came up with to determine how extreme a voter is. The exact coaches matches means that a coach ranked the team the same as the final poll turned out. I blued extreme teams that were from the head coach of that team.)
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