I heard on the sports radio station I listen to this morning that Bob Stoops (ramah's good friend) has gone on record as stating that if the Coach's Poll, AP poll, and computer polls are all going to count as 1/3 of the BCS equation, he wants coaches to publish how they voted every week. The program said that he wants coaches to be accountable for their selections. I personally think this is a great idea to see who is voting based of regional preference versus the actual performance of a team and wins/loses. Maybe Stoopy is not so bad after all……………………………...
I like the idea. What hurts the validity of the AP poll now is the fact that it is released BEFORE the season ever begins, before any coach has seen a team play. It's rankings mostly based on last years performance. Also, many coaches do not even vote in the poll. Many sports information directors and other people in the athletic dept vote. Do you think a college head coach sits down every week and breaks down each team that he plans on voting for in the AP poll?? Absolutely not. I'll take LSU's BCS National Championship over the AP "Coaches" Championship anyday.
i agree with him and ap voters should be held to this too. maybe not put the name of the reporter just the city he is from. they also need to get people who vote to sit down and watch as many games as possible on sat and sun and then watch highlights of the ones the couldn't get because many of these voters haven't even seen the top teams play.
And what hurts the validity of the coaches poll is that they hardly ever get to actually see the teams play, so their SID's or son-in-laws do the voting for them.
that was the radio folks point as well. these coaches are so focused on their team and the team they are playing that week, there is no way they can give a concise vote week in and week out. you think Saban watches TCU and Bowling Green every week?????
Because of the many different criteria that go into evaluating whether one team is actually "better" than another, there is no way one person can sit down and write out an objective list and determine which teams are better than others. Unless there is a playoff the best and most objective way to determine an accurate poll of the top 25 teams is to have a predetermined set of criteria that is calculated to determine a poll. It is possible for humans to analyze the data but quicker for computers to do it. Unless/until there is a playoff, a poll centered on objective criteria and not a human poll (popularity contest) is the best and most fair way to determine a national champion.
