Who's Number Three?
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by user DNL
It's clear that Michigan and Ohio State University are the top two teams in college football. But who is #3? A look at the AGM user poll results suggests Florida, by a slim margin over USC (10 vote margin) and Rutgers (14).
This year, the #3 question is even more interesting, with #1 and #2 playing each other this week to close our their regular season. The winner of the race for third will, absent a Michigan/OSU tie or a rematch, have a shot at a national title.
AGM voters had four different schools in the 3-hole, Florida, USC, Rutgers, and Arkansas. These three team were, respectively, third through six in the AGM poll.
I took a look at all sixteen ballots to see if there was anything interesting when you shook up the data. Pleasantly, there was something -- something that lends credence to the mantra that all too often, when in doubt, voters (ourselves included) take the "big name" over other factors.
Take a look at the collective balloting results for the four schools mentioned:
Florida
- No. 3 -- seven ballots
- No. 4 -- five ballots
- No. 5 -- one ballot
- No. 6 -- one ballot
- No. 7 -- one ballot
- No. 8 -- one ballot
- Average rank: 4.2
- Standard deviation: 1.56
- Median rank: 4th
USC
- No. 3 -- three ballots
- No. 4 -- four ballots
- No. 5 -- six ballots
- No. 6 -- one ballot
- No. 8 -- two ballots
- Average rank: 4.6
- Standard deviation: 1.57
- Median rank: 5th
Rutgers
- No. 3 -- four ballots
- No. 4 -- two ballots
- No. 5 -- five ballots
- No. 6 -- one ballot
- No. 8 -- four ballots
- Average rank: 5.2
- Standard deviation: 1.91
- Median rank: 5th
Arkansas
- No. 3 -- two ballots
- No. 4 -- two ballots
- No. 5 -- four ballots
- No. 6 -- four ballots
- No. 7 -- one ballot
- No. 9 -- one ballot
- No. 10 -- one ballot
- No. 11 -- one ballot
Average rank: 5.9 Standard deviation: 2.33 Median rank: 5.5th
Average rank is another way of looking at any one team's poll result, relative to the rest of the teams voted for. So it shouldn't surprise you that Arkansas' is the worst while Florida's is the be8st. Rather, that is necessarily true.
What is somewhat surprising, though, is the standard deviations. Florida and USC have virtually identical ones. Rutgers' is larger, suggesting that voters disagree significantly as to how to place them. Arkansas's is even worse, reflecting a scatter-shot take from the (statistically insignificant) pool of voters.
Yet the inescapable conclusion is that the divide between "record voters" and "strength of schedule" voters (a/k/a/ "name" voters) is real and demonstrable.
Two other interesting factoids center around Notre Dame. First, there's another question about standard deviation. Being blown out by Michigan means that the highest the Irish appear on anyone's ballot is #4 (twice), and one person had ND at #13 (??). This gives the Golden Domers an average rank of 6.9, a median of 7, and a standard deviation of 2.06.
But take out that 13 and make it a 7 (the median) -- and the Notre Dame standard deviation plummets to 1.26. That is, with one exception, the ArmchairGM community thinks that Notre Dame is "right" in or around the 7th slot.
Yet Wisconsin -- who faced, to date, a schedule similar to ND's and whose only loss is to the same Michigan squad that beat Notre Dame -- has a an average of 11.75, a mean of 11, and a standard deviation of 3.53. They're all over the place. Remove their lowest rank (17th) and replace it with the median (11th), and the standard deviation falls only to 3.24. Crazy.
Oh, the other factoid? Only one voter had Wisconsin over Notre Dame.
