UPI to Exclude Coaches’ Votes From National Football Poll

United Press International no longer will include votes from the American Football Coaches Assn. to determine its national college football rankings, the wire service said Monday. Instead, UPI’s national rankings will be determined by votes from UPI sportswriters.

“After more than six months’ discussion, UPI and AFCA have ended the joint polling effort which began in 1950,” said Milt Capps, senior vice president for UPI, a wire service agency.

For more than 40 years, UPI sportswriters gathered votes from coaches each week, tallied the results and reported them. But UPI’s rankings now will be determined by the votes of the sportswriters independent of the AFCA, which will produce its own, separate coaches rankings.

The AFCA said its new coaches rankings will be distributed and promoted by USA Today. UPI also plans to carry the coaches rankings.

This year the UPI National Championship Trophy went to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. Rankings from USA Today/CNN and Associated Press gave top position to the Colorado Buffaloes.