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According to Yahoo! News, the AFCA approached pollster group Gallup to ask if there were any improvements they could make to their own polling system.  Gallup suggested introducing confidentiality, and the AFCA, apparently, has obliged, allowing a coach, if he so pleases, to make his final poll private.

“Gallup said, ‘Look, why do you think they have curtains and booths for voting?’” AFCA executive director Grant Teaff said. “They said it’s because you get the truest vote from an anonymous vote.”

Granted, there are benefits to the change.  First of all, in making their votes private, the coaches will be, ostensibly, not held to a commitment of “voting up” the other teams in their conference.  As it currently stands, though, only the final poll was made public.  We are to believe, as fans, that the coaches vote independently and based not on any factors other than a team’s performance, so a private poll works in that sense.  If all polls throughout the season had been made public, this decision would be much more influential.

The final poll serves a very important purpose, as it defines BCS matchups and plays a large part in deciding who goes to what bowl games.  While it is pretty cool to see, from a novelty standpoint, how the coaches see it, one would have to assume at least some degree of collusion goes on.  Seeing as it would be beneficial for the conference for an SEC team to make the BCS championship game, one would expect all SEC coaches to rank that team highly.  But does this really happen?

Taking a look at the public final Coaches Poll of 2008, we can examine a few trends.  Let’s take a look at Florida.  Ranked #2, Florida received 1st place votes from 26 of 61 coaches overall, good for a 43% ratio.  But just about all SEC coaches who voted in the poll–Sylvester Croom of Mississippi State, Auburn’s Tommy Tuberville, Urban Meyer of Florida, LSU’s Les Miles, Phil Fullmer of Tennessee, and Georgia’s Mark Richt voted for Florida as the #1 team in the country.  The only SEC coach who didn’t follow the herd?  Steve Spurrier, who just might have some personal issues with Florida.  But the 6 out of 7 SEC coaches who voted that Florida was the #1 team in the country is good for an 86% ratio, roughly twice that of the poll at large.

Spurrier, though, has a thing for outspokenness.  As he told the Sporting News, he’s not a fan of the move.

“I thought we would stay public on that last vote, I sort of think we ought to stay public, you know. It keeps everybody pretty honest so I don’t know, that was surprising,” said South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier.

It certainly kept Spurrier honest, but you couldn’t say the same of his fellow SEC coaches.

Okay, so we’ve established some collusion.  Mark Richt doesn’t want to have other SEC coaches calling him a backstabber for not supporting the conference, so he’d be likely to give into a little peer pressure from the other SEC figureheads.  But can we establish that this wouldn’t happen if the poll was private?  The conferences still benefit from getting into better bowl matchups, and that’s definitely clear to the coaches.  Hell, any coach could vote his own team at #1 or any rival unranked.  Hell, Spurrier could’ve left Florida off his ballot completely.  Mack Brown could’ve voted his team at #1.  Hell, if I’m any coach, I’m giving myself that #1 vote.  Nobody could ever call you out on it.

So what’s the solution?  Seems pretty clear cut.  Get rid of the Coaches Poll.  You think that these guys, who spend their days and nights studying up on their own team and next week’s opponent watch that much TV?  I’d be very willing to bet that the average fan watches far more football than the average coach in the poll.  Think about it-while we’re flipping between 6 or 7 games on a Saturday afternoon, they’re preparing their own team.  Who are they to hold the cards, especially with so much at stake?  Nobody with a personal vested interest, and by definition these coaches are, should have a say in the matter.

“But some coaches who I respect chose not to vote,” Miles said. “They felt it was a competitive disadvantage to their team when they voted against a team, and then they had to line up and play that team. If this allows responsible members of the coaches association to vote, it’s great.”

So why don’t you be reponsible, Les.  Step up and confront the AFCA.  If it’s a conflict for one coach, voting in the poll should be a conflict for every coach.  Granted, the computer projections and Harris polls aren’t much better, but at least those are, relatively, objective.  There is no place for objectivity, especially when it comes to determing a championship matchup.  Frankly, the Blogpoll is probably the best measure of a ranking teams, but we all know the derision held towards alternative media forms.  If tradition and history can continue to come before common sense and transparency, then progress will never be acheived.  If we can’t even fix the Coaches Poll, what hope is there for a playoff?

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