Should the BCS rethink the human element of its ranking formula?
We've got the nerdy computer polls that figure strength of schedules, power rankings, etcetera. But what about the voters? Is this the best we have? Right now there are two human polls used in the BCS rankings. One is from a panel of current football coaches, the USA Today/Coaches Poll. The other is the Harris Poll, a panel comprised of nominees from conferences throughout the NCAA.
The Harris Poll took the place of the AP poll, which is comprised of sportswriters and sportscasters assigned by the editors of The Associated Press.
Just over three years ago, the AP decided it would no longer give the BCS permission to use their poll for the rankings, citing a potential ethics issue.
I was one of the first Harris Poll voters. I withdrew my name as a pollster before the 2008 football season for myriad reasons, one of which, at the time, I was a college beat reporter and it was very difficult to cover games Saturday nights and then do due diligence by 8 a.m. Sunday — the deadline for filing my ballot.
I never had adequate time to assemble all the information on 30 top teams and whittle it down to a Top 25, and it was impossible to personally witness the play of that many teams through cursory highlights on SportsCenter.
One Sunday morning, I was driving from Boston to Hartford, Conn., to catch a flight home after the Boston College-BYU game when I had to file my ballot by cell phone. I had no Internet and just a newspaper with no West Coast scores for research. I managed, but didn't feel good about it.
I remember getting to my hotel room after a road game at UNLV. I had a full room of family members and we didn't retire until about 1:30 a.m. I got up at 7 a.m. and, using a flashlight, tried to create my Top 25 from notes, my previous ballot and research on the Internet without waking anyone up.
Needless to say, I messed up and got a lot of Penn State fans upset. The Deseret News published all my ballots each week, one of the only votes made public on a weekly basis nationally.
In short order, I found myself on a Pittsburgh sports radio station Monday, prepared to be roasted and skewered. How could I have ranked undefeated Penn State No. 18 when they were a Top 10 team.
An angry audience waited anxiously to hear my reasoning.
I told the host the truth. I made a mistake and failed to place Penn State where it belonged after a huge win. No reasoning, no defense, no argument.
I simply blew it.
The host hesitated. There went what he thought would be 20 minutes of fireworks and debate on his program.
He thanked me for my honesty and all the drama sunk faster than a river rock.
It wasn't fun. I wasn't paid. I didn't need to vote for ego's sake. And it certainly wasn't easy to sit back and claim you know everything there was to know about all these teams and could absolutely file a perfect ballot, which is a form of opinion.
The coaches' votes?
It is common knowledge that today's college football coaches have little time on Sundays to fill out a ballot, and thus it is often done by the director of football operations, a sports information director, or other aide or assistant.
Sundays are to college football coaches like foxholes are to soldiers in war. Bullets fly. They barely have time for a lunch because they break down film, create a new game plan and filter through scouting reports and create practice scripts for the coming week.
"No one has more tunnel vision from September to December than the college football coach," former USC and UNLV coach John Robinson told the College Football News recently. "The only thing you're focused on is your team and next week's opponent. These days, people like me are in a far better position to take in all of the action and provide our analysis."
Vote on a poll by a coach? A joke. That's how Missouri's Gary Pinkel voted Utah No. 15 in his final season ballot last January.
There might be an answer in The Legends Poll, which has been in operation since 2005 with a panel of 17 former coaches who are divided to watch sections of the country's college games and become experts on how those teams play.
The panel includes coaching legends like Robinson, LaVell Edwards, John Cooper, Gene Stallings, Vince Dooley and George Welch. They are sent DVDs of games to review, and they have a conference call to voice their opinions and hear those of others before they vote.
These men, a kind of star chamber, have great passion for the game, and they know the insides and out of what it takes to win and recruit and who is doing the very best job. They know who to credit and rank. In retirement, they have time to be exposed to the entire majesty of the game from Saturday morning until networks sign off for the day. They don't have a newspaper deadline or an airplane to catch after the final gun.
What they do have is time. And knowledge.
Organizers of this poll have already approached the BCS folks. But just like MWC commissioner Craig Thompson's recommendation for a similar vote from a new panel, our friends at the BCS declined any change.
We're only days away from AP and USA Today in-season polls and a month away from the first BCS rankings.
What do they mean? They're fun, but are they the best we've got? I say no.
But if this is the ball and chain we're stuck with, from my own experience, we have to be better off with the likes of Robinson and Edwards stepping in as the human element.
e-mail: dharmon@desnews.com