First Edition of the CFB FanPulse Top 25 Confirms National Opinions Are Weird

Last month, we started sign ups for the SB Nation CFB Top 25, a new project by our network to get the fan’s picks for the top teams in the nation. The first edition is here, and here are the results.

Other teams receiving votes: Washington State, Syracuse, Boise State, Stanford, Army, Virginia, Mississippi State, Oklahoma State, Minnesota

First, looking through the individual team site data, I found quite a few instances of sites inflating their own team’s ranking over the national data. Some extreme examples:

College And Magnolia - put Auburn 14th vs National ranking of 18th
Our Daily Bears - put Baylor 23rd vs National ranking of Unranked
Black Heart Gold Pants - put Iowa 14th vs National ranking of 19th
And The Valley Shook - put LSU 5th vs National ranking of 10th
State Of The U - put Miami 18th vs National ranking of 22nd
The Only Colors - put Michigan State 17th vs National ranking of 23rd
Good Bull Hunting - put Texas A&M 6th vs National ranking of 11th
CougCenter - put Washington State 16th vs National ranking of ARV.

Overall, I don’t know that I’m too surprised by any of these, I just found it interesting to note how consistently sites are overranking their own team. Although I can’t promise that I wouldn’t have done the same with Kansas if they had been available to select.

As for my own reactions to the teams in the national rankings, I’m only mildly surprised with the SEC results. The 4 in the top 10 seems a little bit unjustified, but I was surprised that a few more didn’t sneak in the 22-25 range.

As usual, the Big 12 got disrespected, with only 3 teams in the top 25, and Iowa State being put right behind their annually underachieving Iowan brethren. I thought Oklahoma State should have been in at 24 or so, and Baylor at least deserved to be getting votes.

Those are ongoing, so if you don’t like what you see here, then take a minute to sign up yourself. We need at least 50 people to get a breakdown of the poll for our site specifically, and I’m looking forward to being able to write about our own rankings in the near future.