Hippies and sports fans unite: something fishy about these
polls
People from outside California – and I suppose people from inside California – have certain stereotypes of Berkeley.
Know-it-all intellectuals. Man-hating feminists. Kooky left-wingers.
So when they hear the kids at Cal are protesting again, a sigh and a roll of the eyes usually follows.
What is it now? The evil-doers at Wal-Mart? U.S. policy in Iceland? A Republican professor, perhaps?
Um, not this time.
Try the earth-shattering, world-changing, I-think-I’ll-write-my-congressman issue that is the Bowl Championship Series.
(That’s college football for you kooky, know-it-all, man-hating hippies).
Yes indeed, pigskin fever has captured the hearts of bandwagon Cal fans everywhere. Now it doesn’t matter that most of them didn’t even know what BCS stood for until sometime around Halloween.
All they know now is they’ve been relegated to the Holiday Bowl, Texas has been upgraded to the Rose Bowl and George W. Bush and Karl Rove are somehow prominently involved.
So they are annoyed. They are outraged. They are up-in-arms. And you know what else?
They actually have a point … at least about one thing.
This secrecy that continues to plague the credibility of the coaches’ poll needs to end – and it needs to end soon.
To tell you the truth, several things about my favorite sport annoy me at this moment – and I’m not even a pro-playoff person.
But I’m annoyed by the fact that Auburn can go 12-0 and a win a title game in the toughest conference in the country, and somehow not get a chance to play for the big one.
I’m annoyed by the fact that Auburn and Cal “didn’t do enough” against bowl teams like Tennessee and Southern Miss, but USC basically got a free pass all season long – a season that included narrow wins over mediocre-at-best Stanford, Oregon St. and UCLA.
I’m annoyed by the fact that we basically decided our national championship matchup in August, when the preseason polls came out. Someone really needs to explain to me why we can’t publish the first polls in mid-October and base them on the season-to-date, and not the previous season’s results or how many starters are back on campus.
Anyway, I could write about that stuff for hours. Being the caring person that I am, I’ll spare you the excitement.
For those that now claim the Bears as their beloveds, though, the top-secret coaches’ polls probably hits a little closer to home.
In case you didn’t notice, Texas received enough of a boost in the coaches’ poll to help bump Cal out of the No. 4 BCS slot and into a sizzling bowl matchup with four-loss Texas Tech.
Jeff Tedford’s bunch traveled 2,500 miles last Saturday and beat a bowl team in a tough environment by 10 points. The Longhorns didn’t play.
So naturally, four coaches decided to drop Cal to No. 7 in their poll and two even decided the eighth spot was the right place for the Bears.
It gets better.
Forgetting the fact that Texas squeaked out wins over Arkansas, Missouri and Kansas – none of which are playing in the 87 bowl games we now have – two coaches decided to move idle Texas up to No. 3 in their poll. One even decided the second spot was the right place for the ‘Horns.
Wouldn’t you love to know where USC, Oklahoma and Auburn placed in those ‘Horn-friendly polls? Wouldn’t you love to see the ballot of both Texas coach Mack Brown and his brother Watson, the coach at UAB?
So, of course, would 99 percent of college football fans. And the Pac-10 commissioner. And the Big 12 commissioner/BCS coordinator. Oh, and several prominent coaches, including Tedford and Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops.
Too bad for us the American Football Coaches’ Association won’t open up their poll to public scrutiny. Too bad for us they won’t follow the lead of the writers and hold themselves accountable for deciding who gets the millions the BCS doles out.
And we are talking about millions here, people. An extra BCS berth is worth a cool $14 mil to a conference, which divvies it up among each of its members.
I’m not much into conspiracies, but are you telling me that didn’t play into the minds of any coaches in the Big 12? Give me a break.
The 61 coaches who participate in the poll recently voted for secrecy over openness, 32-29. What are they hiding?
Grant Teaff, executive director of the coaches’ association, was nice enough to clear things up for us earlier this week.
“By not revealing their votes,” he explained with a straight face, “the coaches think they can do it more honestly and with less politics.”
Wait, what!? Really?
Unbelievable.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but fight on, Berkeley kids. Fight on.
If you run out of signs or bull horns, you know where to find me.
Brett Edgerton is a columnist for South Valley Newspapers. His new buddies at Cal can find him at
be*******@gi************.com
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