They can leave their hats on.

GTP old timers can recall why I started the Mumme Poll here.

The inspiration for the Mumme Poll came from the final 2007 regular season Coaches Poll and Tony Barnhart’s post breaking down some of the more curious ballots cast.  (You can read that post here.)  The poll is named in honor of perhaps the most questionable vote of that Coaches Poll – Hal Mumme’s ballot listing Hawaii as the number one team in the country.

The Coaches Poll voting was rife with bias and conflicts of interest.  The best thing the CFP accomplished was putting the coaches vote out to pasture.

That doesn’t mean there’s no longer a problem with bias and conflicts of interest.  It’s just morphed into something equally dumb.

Ten of the 13 members of the College Football Playoff selection committee are recused from voting on certain schools this season, according to a release Thursday from the CFP.

The recusal policy remains the same as it has in the past five years, stating, “A recused member is permitted to answer only factual questions about the institution from which the member is recused but shall not be present during any deliberations regarding that team’s selection or seeding.”

When more than three-quarters of your voters have to excuse themselves from voting, that’s a pretty good sign you’re not doing it right.

Maybe I need to bring the Mumme Poll back.

10 Comments

Filed under BCS/Playoffs

10 responses to “They can leave their hats on.

  1. Bigshot

    If you think that was full of self-interest wait until you see the committee’s vote for the playoffs. UF and GT have AD’s on the committee and they will be sure to stick it to UGA.

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  2. CB

    First link sent me to one of those Georgia Tech Error 404 messages.

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  3. stoopnagle

    I wish you would.

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  4. Gaskilldawg

    As I understand it, this can happen. Let’s say, hypothetically, that Ohio State’s AD is on the committee and OSU has a 1 loss season, and 2 power 5 teams are undefeated. There are 3 1 loss power 5 teams, so the debate is which power 5 team is in or out. OSU’s AD cannot be in the room to discuss OSU’s merits, but he can be in the room to trash talk the other 2 teams that could potentially take OSU’s spot.

    Political scientists say negative campaigning is effective. How is that avoiding self-interest from affecting the voting, or appearing to affect the voting?

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  5. Cojones

    How could anyone forget the Delany-approved Big10 coaches favoring their teams and dissing the SEC for years? That’s one of the reasons I dislike the assholeism that he practiced then and would practice to this day if not for the attention Mumme finally brought to such a biased rating system. Subjective reasoning is the rule proposed before they fell into total “Who are you kidding?” territory.

    Is Corch on that committee this year? How about all retired coaches of the Big10? I have the notion that Mumme’s vote was a parody of the Coach’s Poll (because he is a serious Offensive Coach) and it brought the correct attention to it’s subjectivity.

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