BYU’s Missing Vote and the Gap to No. 8

One Omission Among 69 Ballots

BYU finished No. 9 in the September 20 AP Top 25. Of the 69 voters who submitted a complete ballot, 68 included the Cougars. Jerry Humphrey’s ballot was the only one that left them unranked.

Humphrey Says It Was a Mistake

In his September 23 interview with Cougar Sports with Ben Criddle, Humphrey said he was submitting his ballot on his phone around 4 a.m. when the page refreshed and erased it. He said he reconstructed the list from memory, missed BYU, and submitted without a thorough final check. His original list, he said, had the Cougars ninth.

Humphrey Ranked BYU No. 13 a Week Earlier

The omission followed three consecutive ballots that included BYU. Humphrey put the Cougars No. 14 in the preseason poll and No. 15 in Week 1, then moved them to No. 13 in Week 2.

Why 17 Points Would Not Close the Gap

BYU finished with 1,090 points. Alabama, one place ahead at No. 8, had 1,182, a gap of 92 points.

Under AP’s scoring system, a first-place vote is worth 25 points, a second-place vote 24, and so on down to one point for No. 25. Humphrey’s intended No. 9 placement was worth 17 points, which would put BYU at 1,107, or 75 behind Alabama if the Crimson Tide’s total stayed the same.

Even a first-place vote, worth 25 points, would leave BYU 67 points short of Alabama with the other totals unchanged. Neither addition would be enough to move the Cougars into eighth place on its own.

A replacement ballot would still need exactly 25 teams. Adding BYU would require removing a team and could shift others’ positions, changing their points as well.

Humphrey’s earlier support for BYU is consistent with the mistake he described, though it cannot verify his lost draft. His account gives reason to distinguish the omission from a deliberate decision to drop the Cougars. The missing points alone, however, were not enough to explain their place behind Alabama.