HOW TO READ THIS TABLE
Teams are ranked in their order from the AP Poll for Week 1. The column to the right of the team name shows the number of points that team received using the AP Poll's
Borda count rules. The following two columns show information about each team's previous and upcoming games. The following columns show how many votes for each ranking the team received. The 'U' column shows how many voters left the team unranked (off their ballots entirely). Gridlines are placed every 5 rows and columns for ease of reading. A thick line is placed below the 25th-ranked team to distinguish "ranked" teams above it to "receiving votes" teams below it.
Some cells are shaded to highlight points of interest. The green diagonal highlights how many voters ranked a team exactly where they ended up in the overall poll. For example, South Carolina is ranked 10th in this week's poll, and 12 voters placed the Gamecocks exactly in their 10th spot. Values for which a team received no votes at that rank are shaded in red, while placements chosen by only exactly one voter are highlighted in blue. Some unique votes are annotated with the name of the corresponding voter. The most common selection (the
mode) for each team is shaded yellow unless it matches the team's rank. Finally, since there are very few votes that ever end up near the top-right or bottom-left of the chart, those cells are filled in with black diagonally as much as possible without covering up any nonzero values. This helps naturally guide the eye while viewing the chart and helps locate the most unusual votes. We lightheartedly call these the "Wilner" diagonals.
Finally, I note violations of the
Condorcet Criterion on the bottom left corner of the black space. These occur when Team A is ranked above Team B in the poll, but Team B would win if you ignored the points system and just asked the voters "Which team do you have ranked higher?" I note every instance of this when it would affect the placement of a team in the Top 25, but not necessarily if it only flips teams' positions in the receiving-votes category.
This season, scores will be highlighted (lowlighted) in black to indicate a loss instead of using a W/L column. I did this at the end of the season last year, and it was well received, so it returns for this entire season. This way is easier to see at a glance and slightly reduces the clutter on the left side of the table.