Marler Monday: The AP Poll Voting Debate

By Chris Marler

Accountability is never fun when you’re the one being called out for it. 

It’s beyond time we start holding some people accountable for how egregious they are at doing their jobs. I mean people that deserve constructive or non-constructive criticism the most. 

Major League Umpires. SEC Officiating. And don’t get me started on whoever has changed the portion size of the Cane’s chicken tenders. 

All of those groups and people deserve the ire and slander they’ve collectively been given over time. They’re safe, however, from me this week. My anger and frustration is directed towards something entirely different this week – College Football AP Poll Voters. 

Every Sunday the AP Top 25 comes out for college football, just like it has since 1936 when it was started. Every week Twitter overreacts to it just like it has since 2006 when it was started. The overreactions are expected. After all, there’s a reason why fan is short for fanatic. 

What I didn’t expect to see so much so early into this season was validation and ignorance. More specifically, I did not expect the validation to be from angry fans and ignorance from the actual voters. 

There are 66 voters that make up the AP Poll. It’s composed of beat writers and sports media personalities from all over the country. It’s become a complete joke. It’s not because of bad opinions. I can handle a “bad take” or difference in opinion. What I, as a lifelong college football fan, cannot handle is laziness or ignorance. 

Not from an actual voting member of the media. I mean, how is that even acceptable? 

That’s been the exact case though. Just look at what LA Times reporter Haley Sawyer had to say about her moving up Florida two spots in her week three poll and leaving South Florida unranked after they beat Florida two Saturdays ago. 

“I don’t want to go too much into my process or logic… It’s really fun but it doesn’t probably matter in the end.”

.@haleymsawyer’s response to CFB fans criticizing her AP Ballot:

“I don’t want to go too much into my process or logic… It’s really fun but it doesn’t probably matter in the end.”

Sawyer moved Florida up two spots after losing to USF on Saturday. 😵‍💫 https://t.co/b0ATToij8x pic.twitter.com/d9wsQpLA0F

— (UNRANKED) USFBULLS69 (@usfbulls69) September 9, 2025

It doesn’t matter? It has to matter. It’s mattered for 89 years. Maybe it doesn’t matter to her, or matter as much as it should. But it absolutely matters. 

This week a whole new uproar developed over Notre Dame being ranked No. 24. If that seems odd to you, it should. They haven’t won a game this year and are 0-2. Again, that’s just a difference in opinion for the most part. Granted, I wouldn’t have ranked them in the Top 10 like Koki Riley from the Baton Rouge Advocate did, but that’s none of my business. The issue isn’t the opinion, it’s the laziness. 

Case in point, Brenna Greene from KOIN TV in Oregon ranked South Carolina over Vanderbilt. Let me rephrase. She ranked South Carolina No. 10 in the country and left Vanderbilt out completely after the Commodores beat the Gamecocks by 24 points on their own field. 

All #APTop25 week 4 ballots: pic.twitter.com/e4EGDgNzS8

— RedditCFB (@RedditCFB) September 14, 2025

Again, I ask, what are we even doing here? 

I empathize with beat writers voting in the poll, to be honest. Their job isn’t to cover the entire landscape of college football. It’s to cover a team. Usually it’s to cover a team geographically located where they live, which of course could be thousands of miles away from other teams and in a different time zone from them. Or, and this will shock you, featuring teams that are playing at the same exact time they are working and covering their own teams’ game. 

That doesn’t excuse someone from checking a box score though. But that doesn’t happen if the process doesn’t matter to the people involved. 

This will sound dramatic, and I don’t care. I am dramatic. Anyone who’s followed my twitter for more than five minutes could tell you that. So, dramatically speaking, it needs to matter. It has to matter. 

The sport still matters to a lot of people around the country. It’s making more money than it’s ever made. But, more than anything, it continues to change more than it ever has. The AP Poll has been one of the most longstanding traditions and stable parts of the sport. 

Fix it. Figure it out. But, most importantly just do your damn jobs.