It’s always fun checking these guys out when they’re forced to drop the curtain, and this year is no exception. A few ballots of note:
- TCU got one first place vote, from Idaho’s Robb Akey. Solidarity, brother! Akey voted Auburn third. He probably finds Cammy Cam Juice a little too sweet for his taste, too.
- TCU got two second place votes, from Mike Locksley and Kyle Whittingham. More solidarity, brother! Both voted Auburn third.
- Biggest self-promoter this year is Bo Pelini, who somehow found it in his heart to vote his three-loss squad eighth (they finished 16th in the Poll). That led to some fairly hypocritical reshuffling on his part. He voted one-loss Michigan State eleventh and two-loss Oklahoma State twelfth. Best of all, he had three-loss Texas A&M, a team which beat Nebraska, all the way down at number sixteen.
- Jim Harbaugh wasn’t taking any chances, either. He voted Stanford third, ahead of TCU, and gave Wisconsin its lowest vote, eighth.
- Ron Zook thinks Gordon Gee is the bomb: he voted all three one-loss Big Ten teams ahead of undefeated TCU.
- Only one SEC coach didn’t vote Auburn numero uno: Corch Meyers.
- From the awww, that’s nice department: Mark Richt voted Central Florida number 25.
- For some reason, Howard Schnellenberger gave 7-5 Arizona a top 25 vote.
It all makes you wonder what these guys are doing on the ballots we don’t get to see.
Get The Picture 
Bo was voting on the principle that Nebraska really has two losses and Texas A & M really has three. I’d like to see the over/under on this theory, I’m so sure that’s what he really believes.
Can I just say I’m glad THAT guy belongs to someone else? He makes Corch Urban Myers look like a class act.
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Yawl reckon the GENIUS FORMERLY KNOWN AS URBAN MEYER knows something we don’t?
“Nothing is as sour as a genius scorned”…..SJ, Jr.
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+1
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Here’s a thought: So you pay somebody to come to your school. And that player leaves for various reasons not necessarily tied to football, do you get your money back?
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Not when you make a return on your investment along the lines of a BCS title game, you don’t.
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This stuff is what makes the system such a sham. Everyone is acting in the best interests of themselves and their conferences (for the most part). Some are worse than others. Pelini should be ashamed of himself.
I say find five of the brightest statisticians in the world, pair them each with a software programmer. Each of them comes up with their own algorithm for calculating the rankings. Open the algorithms to the public so others can suggest changes. In other words, make the selection transparent and the algorithms by people that know what they are doing. Have you ever taken a look at who made the current computer rankings?
It has been proven over and over again that people’s impression of reality can often be quite different from the truth. Not only that, you have a system where people are not being honest.
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“Open the algorithms to the public so others can suggest changes.”
Because people are not going to be acting in the best interests of them, their teams or their conferences?
Playoff system, or leave it mostly to objective computers.
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That’s why you have these algorithms centralized and open. You have an independent review of suggestions (reasonable suggestions) then implement them into the OPEN standard. Transparency is the key to keeping everyone honest.
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Which is why these polls are released to the public.
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I suppose no one is really policing this stuff huh? lol. It seems to come out in the wash, but who really knows?
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I never thought I’d say this, but good for Urban.
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I can’t really blame Kyle Whittingham considering the total demolition TCU put on them at home. Utah’s a decent team, playing at home and TCU beat them by 40. That’s got to make an impression.
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As in, it left a mark.
I’m here all week, folks! 🙂
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I hope Mark Richt (or Claude Felton, though Richt claims he really is the one filling out the ballot) really does think that UCF is the 25th best team in the country. I’d hate to think that he made that vote just to avoid offending our next opponent. You can afford thumb your nose at UCF, coach. If you can’t beat them because they’re so motivated by the snub, well, we’ve got bigger problems.
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Of course, poor-mouthing one’s own team by building up the opponent is a UGA tradition, so Richt is only following the program meme.
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Either that or he’s trying to soften the blow in case we lose to the bastards.
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Or someone at UCF is his supplier.
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Making the votes public was a good move.
Coaches are less likely to delegate their votes to their SID’s or try to game the system.
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I’m not sure that’s necessarily true. If many coaches delegate the responsibility to their SID because they don’t get a chance to watch much football outside of their own squads, wouldn’t they be more likely to delegate that responsibility when the poll becomes public, in hopes of not looking stupid if they vote a 2-or-3 loss team ahead of a 1-loss team that beat them, or something equally as illogical?
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