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News Nuggets, 07.12.05
NOTES FROM ECU AND BEYOND...
Previous Day Nuggets...
Next Day Nuggets...
Compiled from staff reports
and electronic dispatches
BCS rolls out new 'human poll' to plug AP void
NEW YORK The Bowl
Championship Series has created a new college football poll with a unique
twist games will be played before ballots are cast.
Called the Harris Interactive
College Football Poll, it will rank the top 25 teams on a weekly basis,
starting Sept. 25 four weeks into the season. Plans call for 114 voters.
The panel will be comprised of former coaches, players and administrators,
plus media members.
The BCS has said it would like
to see the elimination of preseason polls, which some believe give highly
touted teams an unfair headstart in the rankings.
``This allows for some games
to be played in the current season rather than allow teams to be ranked
purely on preseason expectations,'' BCS coordinator and Big 12 commissioner
Kevin Weiberg said Monday during a conference call.
The season's first BCS
standings will be released Oct. 17.
The new poll replaces The
Associated Press poll, which the BCS had used in its formula for ranking
teams since 1998. Last season, however, the AP told the BCS it could no
longer use its media poll.
In addition to the new poll,
the BCS will continue to use the USA Today coaches' poll and a compilation
of six computer rankings each counting for one-third of a team's grade.
The coaches will continue with a preseason ballot.
Recently, ESPN pulled out of
participating in the coaches poll.
The coaches agreed to have
their final ballots made public for the first time this season. The new
Harris poll will take the same approach, releasing only the final ballots.
When Texas made up late ground
on California in the BCS standings last season and grabbed a spot in the
Rose Bowl, Cal and Pac-10 officials called for the coaches' votes to be made
public.
The AP poll never provided a
secret ballot for its voters.
``We thought it was important
for there to be consistency with the two human polls,'' Weiberg said. ``To
make the ballots public on a weekly basis during the season, we feel the
focus would be on who voted for whom and detract from the games being
playing.''
Last season, the BCS standings
emphasized the polls more than ever and AP voters' ballots were scrutinized
as three unbeaten teams competed for the top two spots.
Weiberg said voters in the new
poll will be allowed to make their votes public at any point in the season
if they choose.
``We've made very good
progress in terms of people responding affirmatively to wanting to be part
of the poll,'' he said.
The AP preseason poll will be
released Aug. 20, with the first regular-season poll Sept. 6. The AP
national champion will be crowned after the Rose Bowl on Jan. 4.
Last season, Southern
California and Oklahoma held the top two spots in both the AP and coaches'
polls in the preseason and kept those positions throughout undefeated
regular seasons.
Auburn, which began the season
ranked in the teens in the polls, went unbeaten but never could pass the
Trojans or Sooners in the polls. USC finished No. 1 in the final BCS
standings and Oklahoma was No. 2, mostly on the strength of their top-ranked
computer score.
All three teams finished the
regular season unbeaten and USC and Oklahoma played for the national title
in the Orange Bowl. Auburn went to the Sugar Bowl, finished the season 13-0
and had to settle for a final ranking of No. 2 in the polls behind national
champion USC.
Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville
said the preseason rankings put his team at a disadvantage because they had
too much ground to make up in the BCS standings before games were even
played.
Harris Interactive Inc., a
marketing company hired by the BCS last month to coordinate the new poll, is
in the process of compiling a panel from 300 possible participants. Voters'
names will be made public and all 11 Division I-A conferences and
independent teams will be represented in the panel.
Each conference nominated 27
people to be placed into a pool of possible poll voters, and each conference
will have 10 of its nominees in the panel.
News Nuggets are
compiled periodically based on material supplied by staff members; data
published by ECU, Conference USA and its member
schools; and reports from Associated Press and
other sources. Copyright 2005
Bonesville.net and other publishers. All rights reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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