A 12-game college football season almost certainly isn’t enough to differentiate the teams from one another to any degree of satisfaction. This is particularly so given contemporary scheduling patterns in which fewer competitive nonconference games are scheduled, lest teams risk a black mark on their records.

Participants in the Harris Interactive and the coaches polls, which account for two-thirds of the formula used to determine advancement to Bowl Championship Series games, nevertheless have to give it the old college try. But are they judging teams based solely on their performance? Or do biases and preordained notions about the teams’ quality enter into the equation?

The evidence points toward the latter. A team’s preseason ranking has a modest but statistically significant effect on its B.C.S. ranking at the end of the season, even after controlling for its quality of play as determined by computer systems.

There is also evidence that teams with wider fan bases are more likely to be treated favorably by B.C.S. voters — meaning that the surveys are a popularity contest, at least in part. A marquee name like Notre Dame is likely to finish a couple of ranks higher than, for instance, Mississippi State or Northwestern given equivalent performance on the field.