The Hotline mailbag publishes weekly. Send questions to wilnerhotline@bayareanewsgroup.com and include ‘mailbag’ in the subject line. Or hit me on the social media platform X: @WilnerHotline
Some questions have been edited for clarity and brevity.
Please note: I’m devoting the entire mailbag to my Associated Press Top 25 football ballot and the decision to rank Georgia No. 1 and Oregon all the way down at No. 2. (The other 61 AP voters have the Ducks on top.)
Before we get into the questions, here are two resources for additional context:
— The AP provides access to each voter’s ballot on a weekly basis through its website.
— I discussed the voting process at length on the latest episode of ‘Canzano and Wilner: The Podcast.’ Our conversation wasn’t limited to my AP ballot, however. We discussed the Heisman Trophy voting process for each of us and John Canzano’s approach to his baseball Hall of Fame ballot.
Now, to your questions …
How is Georgia better than Oregon given the fact Georgia has, in fact, lost a game and Oregon still has not. — @matt_hardie
Nothing is more important for fans to understand than this: The AP offers voting guidelines, but it does not provide a specific framework for defining the “best” team or what makes one team “better” than another. It leaves that to the voters.
Some voters lean into the won-loss records; others favor victory margin; some emphasize schedule strength. The AP wants different methods.
It offers guidelines every summer, before our preseason ballots are due, but most of them focus on voting ethics and the logistics of the weekly process.
The guidelines directed at voting are the following:
— Base your vote on performance, not reputation. Avoid regional bias, for or against. Your local team does not deserve any special handling when it comes to your ballot. Pay attention to head-to-head results. Please be advised: “homerism” will be challenged and could lead to dismissal from the poll board.
— Don’t hesitate to make significant changes in your ballot from week to week. There’s no rule against jumping a 16th-ranked team over the eighth-ranked team if No. 16 is coming off a big victory and No. 8 survived an unranked team. Teams playing under NCAA sanctions are eligible for AP polls.
I have always favored schedule strength and quality wins when assessing a specific team or when comparing teams. Put colloquially: Who did you play? Where did you play? How did you perform?
To me, the number of losses is a consideration, but it’s not the deciding factor. In the football and basketball ballots, I never hesitate to rank a team with more losses ahead of a team with fewer losses if the former has played a tougher schedule and accumulated more quality wins.
Speaking generically — and we’ll address the Oregon-Georgia situation momentarily — I would favor No. 20 losing a close game to No. 5 over No. 15 blowing out a cupcake opponent.
Admittedly, there is a complicating factor: The schedules are not always comparable, especially in the first four-to-six weeks.
Every year, we see situations in which Team A plays a series of tough games and finishes September with two losses whereas Team B plays a soft schedule and ends the month undefeated. (Depending on the specifics, I would rank A ahead of B.)
But some degree of leveling takes place as the results accumulate, and the preseason bias that’s built into each voter’s ballot — because you have to start somewhere — diminishes.
Which team is better? Team A is 6-1, and its best victory is over No. 6. Team B is 8-0, and its best victory is over No. 4. — @TheFlockIsHot
The former is Georgia’s current record, with a reference to the Texas win, and the latter is, of course, Oregon, with a reference to the Ohio State thriller.
I would argue that those data points fall short of revealing each team’s body of work.
The Ducks have played eight games; the Bulldogs, seven. In my view, you cannot focus on either the record or the best win unless everything else is equal.
And that’s the heart of my decision to rank Georgia ahead of Oregon: Everything else is not equal.
The Bulldogs have played a vastly more difficult schedule than the Ducks, to the point that the difference in number of losses becomes secondary.
Now, I’ll pose the question to readers that mirrors my thinking when evaluating the Ducks and Bulldogs: Which resume (quality of opponent, location, result) is stronger?
Team A
— dominant neutral-field victory over No. 11 Clemson
— close loss at No. 14 Alabama
— dominant win at No. 6 Texas
Team B
— narrow home win over No. 15 Boise State
— narrow home win over No. 4 Ohio State
— blowout home win over No. 24 Illinois
(Note: The remaining portions of the two resumes are equally irrelevant.)
To me, Team A’s resume is clearly more impressive, largely because of the locations.
The best team Oregon has played away from home is UCLA. Think about that, folks. We are two months through the season, and the best team the Ducks have played on the road is the Bruins (2-5).
Unless you think it’s Oregon State (4-4) or Purdue (1-6).
Granted, that is not entirely Oregon’s fault. Yes, the Ducks were responsible for their non-conference schedule, but the Big Ten sets the conference lineup.
However, I don’t take any of that into account. Judging intent isn’t practical with more than 130 FBS teams. I evaluate the schedules as they are.
And as someone who has always given significant weight to the quality of opponents, the result and the location, Georgia has a more impressive resume even though the Bulldogs lost at Alabama by a touchdown.
(Of note: In the latest Sagarin computer ratings published by USA Today, Georgia’s strength-of-schedule is No. 6, while Oregon’s schedule strength is No. 40.)
Two more points, to be clear:
— My ballot is not intended to be predictive. In ranking Georgia above Oregon, I am not suggesting the Bulldogs would beat the Ducks on a neutral field. The goal is to be reflective. As the AP’s guidelines state: “Base your vote on performance.”
— The situation is extremely fluid, with the prior results requiring a constant reassessment. And by that, I’m referring to both the team in question and the results of that team’s opponents.
For example, the result of the Ohio State-Penn State game on Saturday morning will have an impact on my placement of Oregon on the ballot due Saturday night.
Is winning games important for ranking purposes, or is it sufficient to get beat by better teams? I have no specific examples. — @vigocarpathian
Winning matters, but it’s not the only component that matters.
In my approach, the weight given to the other factors (quality of opponent, location of games, result) gains importance as the difference in record narrows.
For instance, I would weigh the other factors more heavily when comparing an 8-0 team to a 6-1 team than if I were comparing an 8-0 team to a 4-3 team.
How do you typically balance your journalistic integrity with your need to engage in attention-seeking behavior? — @ChipCBrooks
This question always makes me chuckle. Hopefully, the explanation illuminates my process a bit.
The ballots are due at 8 a.m. (Pacific) each Sunday, through the AP’s voting portal.
I typically work well past midnight on Saturdays — as do most reporters covering college football — and always compile and submit my ballot before going to bed. (In case I oversleep.)
Sometimes, I spend 10 or 15 minutes on the ballot. Other times, the process can take 30 or 45 minutes. It all depends on how many teams are in action, the number of high-quality matchups and the results.
But to your question: I have no idea what the 61 other voters are thinking when my ballot is submitted. The AP’s voting portal doesn’t let you see other ballots, for understandable reasons.
So when I first ranked Georgia ahead of Oregon two weeks ago — it was after the Dawgs won at Texas — I didn’t know if I would be the only voter with Georgia on top, or if I would be one of two or five or 10.
And the thought didn’t even cross my mind.
As I assessed the body of work for the two teams, with a focus on the quality of opponent, location and results, it was clear the Bulldogs deserved to be No. 1.
And nothing changed the second week, when Georgia was idle and the Ducks beat Illinois. That victory, impressive as it was, didn’t offset what I view as a clear resume edge for the Bulldogs.
My question is: How do I get an AP vote, since they are just handing them out to anybody? — @duckgr8ness
Since you asked, here’s a little background.
The AP sets the number of voters on a state-by-state basis based on the total of FBS teams in each state.
California is one of four states with three voters, along with Ohio, North Carolina and Florida. Texas is the only state with four voters.
Most states have just one, including Oregon and Washington.
There are also five voters in the “national” classification.
Everyone works for a reputable news-gathering organization. Nobody from mymomscouch.com participates.
When are you giving up your AP vote? Think it’s time to hang it up and let someone who actually knows what they’re doing vote. — @Sean_Duck541
I have no intention of giving up the vote and, in fact, view my participation as an honor and heavy responsibility.
Within that, I must be ready to defend every line of the ballot each week and be as accountable and transparent as possible.
However, I’ll add one point: The AP doesn’t view outlier ballots — whether it’s mine or someone else’s — as a bad thing.
It’s not striving for groupthink, folks. That’s why the guidelines are vague.
Divergent opinions are a key piece to the poll’s enduring relevance.
On what grounds do you get to use your voting privileges to hold some strange personal vendetta and inflict undue punishment on a program well deserving of an honor you are robbing them of? I’ll hang up and listen. — @JoeWilly70
If my ballot is an attempt to inflict “undue punishment,” then I’m doing a terrible job. After their slow start, the Ducks are rolling.
And for context, please note that Oregon was No. 2 on my ballot (and in the AP poll) after the Ducks beat Ohio State, behind No. 1 Texas.
But following the games of Oct. 18-19, when Oregon won handily at Purdue and Georgia won in Austin, I elevated the Dawgs to No. 1 and kept the Ducks in the second spot.
I see Oregon Twitter has you on its list. We Huskies know what that is like. Treat it as a compliment as we do. — @cat_clark
I have included this question as a means of lending perspective.
The majority of Washington fans who follow me on X (Twitter) believe I hate the Huskies and love the Ducks.
Given this difference of opinion, I suggest you all get together over coffee and figure out which school I hate the most.
Just be sure to let USC fans know. I’m sure they would want to join you all.
How does it feel to get cooked on Twitter? — @greencoffin72
I have always viewed college football on X as the social media equivalent of walking into a sports bar and having everyone yell at you.
But it’s part of the responsibility that comes with covering the sport generally — and voting in the AP poll specifically.
What changed during the bye week for you to add Colorado to your Top-25 and even jump a few teams who played and won? Curious about your thought process. — @Smittytheclownn
Actually, that’s not what happened.
I added the Buffaloes to the ballot last weekend, after they beat Cincinnati.
Their bye is this week.
The online formats used by media organizations to show each AP ballot can be confusing.
Some use up/down arrows to indicate a week-over-week change, but that’s for the team’s placement in the AP poll, not on a specific ballot.
Other formats can make it seem like the schedule for the upcoming week was actually the opponent for the previous week.
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