Dare to be different.

With your assistance, I’m interested in attempting a modest experiment this college football season at Get The Picture.

Like many, I’ve bitched about certain flaws I see in the polling process which I feel adversely affect the polls’ credibility and accuracy. In particular, I think that preseason polls distort the merits of the teams’ rankings and that there is a clear element of bias in the coaches’ poll that undermines its authority.

So I thought I’d take a shot at seeing if there’s a better way to skin the cat by running a poll here that varies from the norm in two pertinent ways:

1. This poll won’t start in the preseason.
2. The results will be tabulated on the basis of approval voting.

The goal is to see if there’s a way to produce a less biased and more accurate measure of evaluating the best teams in D-1 football than what we’ve currently got.  (Besides that, accounting for voters’ bias looks like hard work, and I’m basically a lazy sod.)

Anyway, to find out if this has any traction, I’m inviting you readers and other denizens of the college football blogosphere to participate.

Generally speaking, here’s how it would go: every Sunday and Monday, starting after the games of Week 6 of the season have been played, poll voters would turn in their ballots listing – but not ranking – the twelve best teams in D-1. On that same list, voters will also designate their top five teams out of those twelve. The weekly poll results will be determined by approval voting. (The top five votes will only be used in the event there’s a tie between any of the teams that are in the top five after the initial voting is tallied.)

The voting will run through the regular season and there will be a final poll after the bowl games are concluded.

For this to work, I think I’ll need at least a couple dozen participants. So I’m asking for volunteers. Keep in mind that if you decide you want to be in, that’s a commitment I’m asking you to make for the rest of the season. Don’t do this if your interest will lag as the year wears on, although remember that you’re not being asked to rank twenty five teams in order week after week.  The votes you’ll be casting should be generated with considerably less effort.  After all, if you’re enamored enough with college football to be a regular reader of a blog like this, you should be able to rattle off the twelve best teams in the country in your sleep, right?

If you want to give this a shot, just say so in the comments section to this post.  If the numbers are there, we’ll give it a try.  And don’t be afraid to toss out any suggestions for this that you think might be useful, either.

For what it’s worth, if this actually gets off the ground, I’ve got a name in mind for the poll.  It’ll be a tribute to the coach who cast the single most biased vote in the final regular season coaches’ poll of 2007.

In honor of his first place vote for Hawai’i, here’s to you, Hal Mumme.