Wrong. The future of the AP is bleak. How relevant is the AP in determining the Basketball NC? No one cares what they "think." They rubber stamp the tournament winner or risk being laughed at. Any movement toward a football playoff system makes final polls irrelevant. Their power is shrinking and they know there's no going back. Once upon a time, world leaders were determined by birth. It was done this way for centuries and still is in places. Yet, once the democratic process emerged, no one regarded Kings and Queens as more legitimate because of all the "history" of monarchies. We look at Tony Blair with respect, and Queen Liz II with bemusement. The great history of the AP and the power it wielded for MANY, MANY years is just that: history.
I disagree ChineseBandit. As long as there is no playoff, the AP winner will be viewed by every news organization as a national champ. Just like it was last year with USuCk. There is zero similarities with the NCAA BB situation, they have a playoff. If football has a playoff I agree with you but until that happens the AP poll winner will always be seen by anyone and everyone as NC.
Not by everyone. Largely by the press. And whadayaknow, it's the press who's poll it is. OF COURSE they're going to call it an NC. They're fighting for their own relevance and they are slowly losing.
What a lot of fans often forget is that the NCAA does not santion ANY national championship in football. In the eyes of the NCAA, the BCS and the AP poll carry equal weight in determining the National Champion. Heck, any poll carrys equal weight because the NCAA does not recognize any National Champion. The BCS is just what college presidents (of only the top 6 conferences) decided would crown the 'national champions). We already know the presidents of a lot of universities seem to be full of crap, so why put any stock in the BCS when it was their idea? It was never ageed upon or santioned by the NCAA or any other conference outside of the big 6. I hope the BCS goes by the wayside, heck I liked the system better before the BCS because at least all the other bowl games seemed to have more meaning to them. Most people determine who is worthy of the national championship by themselves anyways. Last year I think LSU and USC were the two best teams, period. It's a shame they didn't get a chance to prove who was better once and for all. This year I'll have the same dilemma. Obviously I'll feel that Auburn is deserving of a National Championship, but I also think whoever wins the USC-Oklahoma is also deserving? Obviously there will never be a true national champion until the NCAA decides to recognize some sort of play-off system.
Don't forget the Coaches Poll is still in the BCS and they don't say how they vote. At least the AP made the votes public. Also not that the current chairman of the BCS is a Big 12 guy. :wink:
Hey, Im with ya. I would love to see the entire BCS/AP/USA Toady poll bs gone and go to a playoff. The press still influences national opinion and the AP champ will still get much of the glory and benefit as the BCS champ no matter how wrong it is.
I know you Aubbies think you got screwed by the BCS but don't tell me what came before was better. I guess you think in that old system you'd have a chance to win an NC since both OU and USC could possibly lose. But I'm sorry, the old system sucked. The old system is dead. Plenty of people hate the BCS but not because they want the old way. They want a playoff.
The AP should disband. The writers should be reporting the news, not making it. I wonder if they were scared of a lawsuit. What if some writers, (let's say from Texas), got together and decided to manipulate the poll by dropping a smaller school (let's say Cal for instance) out of the BCS. Would this make the AP libel in a loss of revenue lawsuit by the small school on the grounds of racketeering or something? (SP) Any lawyers around here?
This is amazing news considering they got more power just this off season from the BCS. They will no doubt regret making this move, but this is the biggest news to come out of college football in years. This even trumps the Saban situation as far as I am concerned for college football news story of the year. The AP actually having some integrity and standing up to a flawed process that they themselves lobbied to create? This just may in fact be the beginning of the end. On a side note, this should help if the coaches poll decides to not come out until October as some people have proposed. The AP more than likely would not agree with this, but now that they are irrelevant hopefully the coaches can wait unitl after a few games have been played to determine who goes where. EDIT: It appears after reading the article on ESPN that the AP has always been concerned that they are making news instead of reporting it. The BCS was also a compromise since it lessened the AP's power, which they wanted. This is a shock to me, but at least this time they got it right. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/columns/story?columnist=maisel_ivan&id=1951170
The BCS did take some of the prejudice out of the polls. Without it all you have is whoever the AP wants and we know that they are not prejudice.
