The biggest differences between the AP Top 25 and its fan poll

The Associated Press decided to reprise its fan poll this season, giving college football fans a way to finally prove they know more than the media members hand-picked by the AP to vote on the top 25 teams in the country each week. But do they? The new AP poll dropped on Tuesday after a jam-packed Week 1, and while quite a few teams are the same across both polls, there are also some stark differences between how fans thought the AP voters would vote and how they actually did. 

Here are the biggest differences between what this week’s actual AP top 25 poll looks like and the fan vote version.

How different the AP top 25 poll is from the fan poll

*Ohio State was listed twice in the AP fan vote poll this week

Ohio State is both alpha and omega in this week's AP fan vote poll. The Buckeyes have apparently been both impressive and disappointing all at once in the eyes of the fans. All jokes and technical glitches aside, Ohio State was listed twice, and since we can't assume who was supposed to fill in that No. 25 spot, we have no choice but to run it as is.

One of the biggest differences involves Michigan, which was booted out of the AP top 25 poll after controversially beating Western Michigan on a second Hail Mary attempt on Saturday night. The fan poll has Michigan at No. 16, which was where they were ranked ahead of Week 1. Other notable differences include Oregon being listed at No. 2 despite dropping to No. 6 in the new AP poll and Texas A&M staying at No. 8 in the fan vote but dropping to No. 10 in the AP poll. 

Other than that, there weren’t any major differences between the two. Several teams moved around a spot or two, but nothing too different aside from Michigan and Oregon. 

Michigan’s controversial win rings with fans, baffles voters

I could understand why the fan voters felt the need to keep Michigan at No. 16. After all, they did technically receive a win, and dropping them out wouldn’t seem like a realistic option. That said, I think AP voters are notorious for punishing teams for bad losses at times. This tells me that the bulk of the voters felt that Michigan should have lost that game — and if it would have been an official loss, they would have bumped them out. It also tells me AP voters don’t believe in Michigan this year, and you can’t blame them for that either. 

Michigan looked horrible against Western Michigan. That’s nothing against the Broncos, who played well above their weight class. WMU probably should have earned that win, and a potential spot in the top 25 (they still wound up receiving some votes). Bryce Underwood played horribly, the Wolverines looked uninspired and, frankly, this team doesn’t deserve to be ranked. That said, the fans were a lot nicer to Michigan than the voters were. 

Oregon survives Boise State and saves face in fan vote

This was one of the more interesting decisions by the fans. I understand Oregon did win, and it did play a really good Boise State team, but they were favored by more than 20 points and at one point trailed by as many as 10. The voters got this one right, bumping the Ducks down a bit in favor of teams that crushed their more inferior opponents in Week 1. 

The first week is a bit tricky in trying to understand the voters’ criteria, because there are very different perspectives among a varied group of media members. It’s going to take more than one week to understand how they vote, value wins and losses, etc. If the fans are told to vote like the AP voters would, this is a fair reason for now. If they vote based on where they think a given team should be ranked, that’s a slightly different story. 

LSU’s wins favor with fans, not AP voters with win over Clemson

The AP voters seem all in on Lane Kiffin and LSU. The Tigers finished 7-6 last year and started the year as the No. 11 team in the country. They then moved up to No. 8 after beating Clemson on Saturday night. I respect the fans for not giving LSU too much credit for their win over what appears to be a bad Clemson team, but I think they got this one wrong. 

I do believe LSU looks like a top-10 team in the country right now. Offensively and defensively, LSU looked as good as any of the top teams. The fan voters will certainly have to take LSU more seriously, but it’s good to see that not everybody is all in on the early hype.

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