Who's copying who? Too much harmony in human polls
Posted: Saturday, November 10, 2007 2:08 AM
In the midst of this turbulent college football season, there has been no shortage of bickering, bashing, complaints and controversies. But surprisingly, there’s a great deal of harmony among the human polls. All three of them are marching in synchronized step with each other.
This week, the Associated Press Poll and the Harris Interactive Poll share the same exact composition of 25 teams. In fact, 14 of them, including the first nine, occupy the same position in both polls. Three teams differ by only one spot and six more are separated by just two.
If not for Penn State’s inclusion at No. 25 in the USA Today Coaches’ Poll, all three human rankings would contain the same 25 schools.
Even with that lone deviation, the coaches’ poll is even more of a carbon copy of the AP version than the Harris, as 15 schools, including the first 11, share identical slots. Three additional teams are off by just one position and four by only two.
I’m not sure who’s copying who, but something’s fishy here. Why would there be so much uniformity when there’s been such a healthy serving of chaos this season? It just doesn’t seem appropriate that 113 participants in the Harris Poll should end up with something so similar to the 65 media members with AP ballots and the 60 coaches polled by USA Today.
Since when did coaches share the same opinions as the media? I did not get that memo.
My guess would be that coaches are generally too busy with their own issues to really buckle down and formulate well-established opinions on the comparative strengths of football teams. (Please note that Bill Callahan, Dennis Franchione and Charlie Weis are USA Today voters.)
And that’s probably why it gets even worse when the BCS Standings get injected into the mix. After that occurs midway through the season, the coaches’ poll seems to take its cue directly from the BCS formula.
When the first BCS Standings were announced on Oct. 14, some level of independent thought was reflected as only one team in the Top-10 held the identical position in the coaches’ poll … No. 1 Ohio State, which was nearly a no-brainer.
Then, after three prior weeks of the omnipresent BCS Standings, the Nov. 4 edition showed six of the Top-10 teams holding positions that mirrored the coaches’ poll. Sure, Nos. 1, 2 and 3 are to be somewhat expected now that teams have played at least nine games, but how do you really explain Nos. 8, 9 and 10? Is the positioning of Boston College, Arizona State and Georgia really that distinct to deserve this type of consensus?
Furthermore, all of the teams included in the first 12 slots of the current BCS Standings correspond to either an exact match with the coaches’ poll or differ by just one position. Four weeks ago, when there wasn’t a cheat sheet or sorts, only half of the first 12 teams were identical or only one off.
I don’t doubt that there are quite a few coaches who put a good amount of time into their individual rankings of teams, using their own personal opinions and experiences to settle upon their decisions. However, far too many of them (or their sports information directors … wink, wink) appear to be taking shortcuts and merely making weekly adjustments based off of the previous week’s status quo established by the BCS.
If this is indeed the case, the six computers that are supposed to be only 33 percent of this equation are having much more of an influence than we are being led to believe.
