Scout.com: Sallee Blog: Coaches Ballots Should Be Public

Sallee Blog: Coaches Ballots Should Be Public

The road to the crystal football just got blurry

By Barrett Sallee

CollegeFootballNews.com
Posted May 27, 2009

The decision by the American Football Coaches Association to allow coaches in the final USA Today Coaches Poll to cast their votes anonymously is a step back in the BCS process.

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Starting in 2010, the veil of secrecy that was lifted in 2005, making public the final votes of all coaches in the USA Today Coaches Poll, will be lowered back down.

The American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) announced Wednesday that the final votes of all coaches in the USA Today Coaches Poll, which is one of the key components in determining the BCS Standings, will no longer be made public, putting an end to the transparency that was brought about after the 2004 season.

That season, an undefeated Auburn team that beat four top 15 teams in the regular season, was left out of the National Championship Game; and Texas, with the help of a little politicking by Mack Brown, jumped California to earn a Rose Bowl bid.

After that debacle, coaches reluctantly allowed their final ballots to be printed in USA Today. The move was viewed as a step in the right direction for the coaches, allowing fans a little more insight on how the BCS process worked. It was also viewed as a step to prevent collusion among coaches who may be voting teams higher or lower depending on benefits for themselves or their conferences.

Wednesday, we took a step backwards.

Everyone knows that college football, to a certain extent, is a beauty contest. While Coaches Poll will still have oversight, the weight of having millions of college football fans judging the legitimacy of each coaches poll, kept the process honest – at least, as honest as any beauty contest can be.

The AFCA is taking a step backwards when it needs to be taking another step forward.

If the BCS is going to include this poll as a factor in determining National Championship Game participants and schools earning the BCS big bucks, then the votes of the coaches, who each have a vested interest in its results, needs to be made public. In fact, due to the weight that this particular poll carries, their ballots should be printed in USA Today every week, not just at the end of the season.

Unfortunately now, we are back to a state of secrecy in the USA Today Coaches Poll. Will the coaches give America their “A Effort” with their ballot, and vote each team as they see them? Most probably will. But, if a team magically jumps another before the final poll, just as Texas jumped Cal at the end of the 2004 season, you can bet that there will be an outcry for the veil to be lifted once again.

Of course, this is totally ignoring the sheer lunacy of having a coaches poll factor into the mix in the first place. Granted, many coaches farm out their ballot to someone else involved in the program. But still, coaches are busy coaching games, studying tape, forming a game plan, overseeing practices, recruiting, etc. Do they really have time to study 100+ teams per week?

Barrett Sallee covers the SEC for www.CollegeFootballNews.com. He can be reached at barrettsallee@gmail.com, or on Twitter

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