Don’t get what a college football team’s rank means? You’ve come to the right place.
Football is confusing.
I’m in the midst of my second football season at a massive Southeastern Conference (SEC) school with a pretty decent football team with an incredible history and following, but I’m still confused.
I love sports; I played them all my life, including varsity flag football all four years of high school, and can explain the rules of hockey in my sleep, but professional football has so many nuances it’s hard to keep up with.
When I ask football bros questions, it sometimes feels like I single handedly set back the women’s rights movement decades based on how they respond, so I usually avoid doing so. Naturally, I turn to the internet, but that’s full of more football bros who have been handed a platform to use the same jargon and vague descriptions I could get from the fraternity boy next to me at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
Her Campus UFL is a judge-free zone, and it is at no fault of your own if you are equally or more so confused.
So, I wanted to break it down and give you both the short answer and a longer, more descriptive answer.
Short Answer
The AP Top-25 ranking system is a way for fans to compare teams and create a numerical competition for upcoming matchups, but the system has no tangible significance in the regular season schedule or championship.
Without a ranking system in place, you have a headline like
“Florida beats Utah in a close decision to start the season on Saturday,” instead of “Un-ranked Florida beats #7 Utah in an exciting contest and massive upset in the Swamp to open the season.”
The rankings create hype and give something, besides winning the championship and players making it to the NFL, for players, coaches and fans to hope and play for. While no coach will say “we won this game so we could get into that #1 spot in the AP polls,” it certainly isn’t removed from their brain.
Long Answer:
How long does the poll run?
The Associated Press releases a weekly poll starting in late August and throughout the playoffs. Each week’s rating is based on the previous week’s game and usually comes out on Sunday, meaning it will include all games played from the previous Sunday to Saturday (the day before the list is published). For example, the list released on Oct. 9 included games from Oct. 2 to Oct. 8.
Who Creates the List?
More than 60 sports writers and broadcasters around the country vote weekly each season, according to Saturday Down South. They are selected by the AP based on their sports coverage experience. This year, there are 63 voters.
Similar to the U.S. electoral votes, who the 60 plus sports writers and broadcasters are depends on geography. Each state gets a number of voters based on the number of teams in the state, which equates to roughly one voter for every three eligible teams in the state.
The catch is not every state is represented. Florida and Texas are tied for the most representation, with four voters each, but 11 states have zero: Alaska, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming. Alongside these, there is also one national reporter: Adam Zucker with CBS Sports Network.
Who gets to be a particular season’s voter differs from state to state and can change every season. The state’s sports editor or lead writer, usually the sportswriter that’s been doing it the longest, picks the voters, but who they pick is completely up to their discretion.
How do the “chosen ones” figure out their rankings?
Veteran voter Jon Wilner, who has covered college sports and been an AP top-25 football AND basketball (yes, there is also AP top-25 polls for women’s and men’s college basketball) voter for over a decade, posted the voting guidelines provided to him back in 2010 that has since been maintained and updated by College Poll Archive.
AP advises voters to vote based on the team’s performance that week, not based on reputation or pre-season speculation. Similarly, voters should avoid regional bias, for or against, and “homerism,” which is voting in favor of your home team, suspicion of doing so will be challenged and can lead to dismissal from the poll board.
To increase transparency, College Poll Tracker identifies potential bias from each voter indicated at the top of their profiles, based on their voting history. For example, Matt Baker with the Tampa Bay Times is identified as having bias toward Missouri and South Carolina because he has ranked those teams five spots above the average over the last eight and five weeks, respectively. Ironically, he was found to have bias against South Florida and Army West Point, ranking both teams four spots below the AP average over the last 18 and six weeks, respectively.
In line with typical journalism ethics, voters are told they should not have any professional or booster connection to the schools they cover due to a potential conflict of interest. They are also not allowed to write for team media guides or independent fan magazines associated with a school due to a potential compromise of objectivity. Finally, they are not allowed to entertain the idea of accepting free tickets, deals, discounts, gifts, etc., for the same ethical reasons.
AP also tells voters to not be scared to make significant changes in their ballots from week to week. This means they could have Florida ranked number eight following a big upset win over Utah, the reigning Pac-12 champions, up from being not-rated the week prior, then drop them down to 16 after a devastating loss to top-25 ranked SEC rival Kentucky, just like Baker did.
Wilner, who released the guidelines provided by AP over a decade ago, did so to provide some background for his decisions and has released blogs explaining his more “controversial” picks that are certainly worth a read if you’re interested in more specific insight.
How are the end rankings compiled?
Each voter provides a ranking of their top 25 teams, which are then combined to produce the national ranking. Twenty-five points are given for each first-place vote, 24 for second place, 23 for third, down to one point for last place. These points are then combined with the other 62 voters’ ballots (63 ballots total), resulting in a list of most to least number of points.
This week, which is week seven of the 2022 season, has Georgia in the No. 1 spot, with 1,535 points, with No. 2 Ohio State (1,507) and No. 3 Alabama (1,489), not too far behind.
These ratings can fall victim to human error, as seen just a couple of weeks ago with Arkansas-based voter Thomas Murphy. After the original release of that week’s poll, he tweeted that he originally submitted his poll in error and mistakenly switched up two colleges of similar names and left out a school as a result. He noticed his mistake, contacted Ralph Russo, the national college football writer for the AP who is in charge of the making and releasing of the poll, and the poll was corrected, only resulting in a little bit of a point difference for two teams, but no changes in rankings.
Russo then explained to fans that he usually reaches out to voters if he notices something especially odd to ensure the vote was done intentionally. But he doesn’t want to make any assumptions and influence a voter’s choice, which is why he didn’t reach out to Murphy in the first place.
Does it actually matter?
Ultimately, no.
It’s just a measure for fans and teams to compare colleges around the country but has no impact on playoffs, who wins the national championship or who wins awards at the end of the season.
The hype created by the rankings have economic impacts as well, as people would usually rather watch on TV or attend a matchup between two ranked teams than two unranked teams.
There is a ranking system that DOES matter, and that is the College Football Playoff (CFP) system, whose rankings decide who is invited to play in the playoffs, bowl games, to play for a chance at the national championship.
Unlike AP’s list, CFP does not release their rankings until around the midpoint of the season; this year’s release will be Nov. 1 at 7 p.m. They will also update their top-25 list every Tuesday at the same time of day (7 p.m., except for Nov. 15, which will be at 9 p.m.) until Dec. 4 (Sunday) at noon, when the four teams will be officially chosen to play in the semi-finals.
It is important to note, however, that the rankings of AP, CFP and even the Coaches Poll, oftentimes are very similar, due to their basis on similar criteria and vote by a wide selection of football experts. CFP’s selection committee includes college athletic directors, former college and professional football players, former head coaches, CEO’s, former sports reporters, etc.
According to Sports Illustrated, AP has released this poll since 1936, and up until 1998, was a key factor in deciding which teams are in the race for the national championship. In ‘98, the BCS computer model replaced it as the most important, then in 2014, the CFP replaced that.
Finale
I genuinely hope this clears up something, anything, to you. College, sports, COLLEGE SPORTS, are all very confusing, and there is no shame in asking questions and seeking genuine answers. And if you knew all of this, remember, let’s not gatekeep information to make ourselves feel better. Educate each other and make sports a more inclusive space for EVERYONE, not just those who have the time to dedicate hours to understanding quirky little football rules.