The poll. Each voter ranks 25 teams. A 1st-place vote is worth 25 points, 2nd is 24, down to 1 point for 25th. Adding up every ballot gives the AP Top 25. We rebuild the poll from the ballots and check it matches AP's published point totals to the point.
Distance from the poll. For every team on a voter's ballot, we count how many spots it is from where the poll has it. A team the poll doesn't rank counts as 26th. A poll team the voter left off counts too. We add it all up and divide by 25.
Example: a voter has Utah 3rd and the poll has Utah 6th. That's 3 spots. Do that for every team, add it up, divide by 25 = spots off per team.
The scale. Voters are placed by where their number falls among all voters that week (or on average across the season):
- NormalClosest 40% of voters to the poll
- MildNext 30%
- SpicyNext 20%
- 🔥 Hot takesThe 10% furthest from the poll
Ballot movement is the same count against that voter's own ballot the week before. Conference lean is how many spots higher or lower than the poll a voter ranks one conference's teams on average, across every week they voted (shown when it's 1.5 spots or more over at least 8 rankings).
A hot take is not a wrong take. Voters who break from the pack are sometimes the first ones right. This page describes how different each public ballot is; it doesn't judge anyone. Coming next: how well each ballot predicted the games.
Ballot data: CollegePollTracker, which compiles the AP's published Top 25 voter ballots. bubble is not affiliated with the AP or CollegePollTracker.