Eric Johnson Leaves No. 4 Miami Off His AP Ballot
Every other voter placed Miami in the top nine. Johnson ranked the Hurricanes seventh last week, but his September 27 ballot leaves them out entirely.
Sixty-Nine Top-Nine Votes, One Omission
Eric Johnson of WSLS-TV left Miami off his ballot in the September 27 AP football poll, making him the only one of 70 voters to omit the fourth-ranked Hurricanes. Every other voter placed Miami ninth or higher.
Johnson submitted a complete 25-team ballot with Miami absent. The published list does not establish whether he meant to leave the Hurricanes out or made an error.
Johnson Had Miami Seventh Last Week
Johnson included Miami in each of his first four ballots this season: fourth in the preseason, fourth in Week 1, sixth in Week 2 and seventh in Week 3. This is his first Miami omission in those five published ballots.
An 80-Point Gap to Notre Dame
Miami finished with 1,501 points, 80 behind No. 3 Notre Dame and 36 ahead of No. 5 Ohio State. Under AP’s scoring system, a team gets 25 points for a first-place vote, 24 for second and one fewer for each position down to No. 25.
The Official Totals
Even adding the maximum 25 points to Miami would produce 1,526, still 55 short of Notre Dame with the other totals held fixed. That is an illustration of the gap, not a reconstruction of a corrected ballot or a claim about Johnson’s intended vote.