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College Football
By: Keith Dobkowski, NCAA Football News Writer
December 8, 2004
On Sunday December 5, the Bowl Championship Series was set,
as USC will face Oklahoma in the National Championship game.
That left Auburn, Utah and Boise State, all undefeated, on the
outside looking in. Furthermore, Texas passed California for the
number four spot and a birth in the Rose Bowl even though Texas
ranked behind Cal in both human polls.
Once again college football is faced with fixing the BCS mess and it
starts directly with the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll.
The Coaches Poll exists with many faults. The two errors are the
most glaring. First, the Coaches Poll creates an incentive to be
dishonest in rankings. And second, the Coaches Poll relies under
the misguided assumption that coaches are free to watch football
games on Saturdays.
DISHONESTY IN RANKINGS
The Coaches Poll automatically asks for misbehavior. The system’s
basis is fundamentally flawed to where a coach can personally
benefit off the votes he makes. With the increased money
available in BCS bowl games and the ever-growing instability of a
coach’s employment, asking a coach to always be honest in the
Coaches Poll is a stretch.
Furthermore, with the confidentiality agreement entwined in the
Coaches Poll keeping a coach’s vote silent, there is no deterrent
to keep a coach from acting improperly.
For instance, there is nothing to stop a coach from ranking all of
his opponents highly, as well as his own team, and giving lower
rankings to teams he is competing against for BCS bowl
placement.
This year the controversy circles directly around Mack Brown and
Texas and Jeff Tedford and California. Texas finished 6th in the A.
P. poll, 5th in the Coaches Poll and 4th in the BCS. California
finished 4th in the A.P., 4th in the Coaches Poll and 5th in the
BCS. The differences of a few votes, specifically in the Coaches
Poll will now send Texas to the Rose Bowl, part of the BCS series
and BCS money, and Cal to the Holiday Bowl for much less money.
It was clearly in Texas’s best interest to rank Oklahoma above
USC in the Coaches Poll. In fact, it was in Texas’s interest to rank
Auburn in front of USC as well. The lower ranking USC received
the less computer strength Cal would receive for their loss to
USC. And Texas would gain greater computer rankings from their
lone loss to Oklahoma.
This scenario plays out in every conference. It is self-serving to
rank your fellow conference members as high as possible to get
the computer benefits based off strength of schedule. Add in the
increased bonus if two teams from your conference make a BCS
bowl game and there will be more cash to spread throughout the
conference.
As Cal was beating Southern Mississippi on Saturday, Mack Brown
was on the wire asking for Coaches’ votes. One can easily
assume that Brown was looking directly at the seven coaches in
the Big Twelve who had Coaches Poll votes.
While the actual votes have remained confidential, it has been
released that Cal, who had been ranked number four for most of
the season, was dropped to number six or below on six Coaches
ballots in the regular season’s final poll. Because the Big Twelve
would benefit the most from Cal’s drop, one immediately suspects
the Big Twelve Coaches switched their votes.
A MISGUIDED ASSUMPTION
The Coaches Poll is a farce. In order to be accurate a coach would
have to watch games all day on Saturdays. However, Coaches
have to coach on Saturdays. That leaves little to no time to watch
any game other then their own.
Before their game, it is delusional to think that Coach would be
tuning in to watch anything else. With the growing pressure and
stress in a win-now job, one must assume that a Coach is
reviewing the game plan.
After the game, the coach has a duty to his team and a duty to
the media. Plus half the time the coach is traveling after the
game. Again there is no extra time to watch other games.
In the Pac-Ten there is an agreement with TBS Sports where the
game of the week is featured on TBS at 7pm Pacific Standard
Time. By the time that game ends, it is after midnight on the East
Coast and Central Time Zone. Again, it is unlikely that all Coaches
are staying awake for this game.
These combined factors show that there is no way a College
Coach has the proper information to make an educated choice to
creating his top-25.
This system does not work.
The BCS was supposed to solve the National Championship
problem. However, in 2001 number one, University of Miami, and
number two, University of Oregon, did not face each other in the
National Championship game. Both teams won big and Miami won
the National Championship by default.
And in 2003, number one USC was left out of the National
Championship game in favor of number two and three Oklahoma
and LSU. USC and LSU won and college football fans were left
with a split championship.
When the dust settles at the end of this year's bowl season, it is
very likely that four teams will remain undefeated. While USC or
Oklahoma will be declared National Champions, that declaration
and the truth may not be one in the same.
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