First off I'm a big Phil Steele fan, and I think he makes a genuine effort to rank teams based on quality research.
However, I do believe some publications and online services do cater to particular fan bases. You see, bobigred, pre-season football magazines doesn't only sell one magazine to each fan base. In fact--and apparently this might surprise you based on your above post--the more people in each fan base the publisher can convince to purchase their product, the more money they make. I'm gonna give you a rough formula here: $5.99 multiplied by the number of magazines sold contributes to the gross profit.
Notre Dame and nebraska both field teams with notoriously large and loyal fanbases. It seems logical, if a publisher gives those fan bases a reason to be excited about their magazine or online service, the more money it could make.
I think that Mt.'s point to which you responded.
BRI might think I'm an asshole, but I'm wondering if he's gonna swoop in and defend your dumb ass on this one...
EDIT:
And another thing:
Advertisers pay more money if they anticipate higher circulation. If a particular pre-season mag routinely outsells the competition, then that magazine can reasonably charge its advertisers more for the service.
It all adds up to a tremendous incentive to sell a lot of magazines. It would therefore seem prudent, from a purely business perspective, to kiss the asses of those fan bases who have more people willing to spend their money on products relating to college football.