COMMENTARY : The Polls Got It Right, All Things Considered

I’ll admit it: The poll system is as oily as a can of SAE-30. There are Associated Press voters with grudges. There are coaches with agendas. The whole thing is enough to make you wish for a playoff plan that actually worked.

Yet despite the pettiness, the hypocrisy and the inexactness of it all, the best team won the national championship. Say what you will about the methods used in the two polls, Florida State doesn’t owe anyone an apology. When the Seminoles’ name is engraved on the respective trophies, there will be no asterisk.

My AP ballot read: 1, Florida State; 2, Notre Dame; 3, Nebraska; 4, Auburn, and 5, Florida.

For what it’s worth, I considered splitting my first-place vote between the Seminoles and the Irish, but then decided that wouldn’t be fair to either team. So I cast it for 12-1 Florida State, even though 11-1 Notre Dame had beaten the Seminoles.

Since then, Irish Coach Lou Holtz has intimated that a conspiracy exists against him and his program. Word is, Oliver Stone is considering an option to the movie rights.

Texas A&M; Coach R.C. Slocum, whose team was beaten by the Irish in last Saturday’s Cotton Bowl, also has criticized voters for choosing Florida State No. 1, going so far as to say: “This will give more momentum to establishing some type of formula where it’s not just something off the top of someone’s head.”

Nebraska Coach Tom Osborne has told reporters that the Cornhuskers’ 18-16 loss to Florida State in the Orange Bowl was deceiving. “As far as I’m concerned, we won,” he said.

Yes, well, that might account for the Cornhuskers’ lone first-place vote in the coaches’ poll.

Even Florida State Coach Bobby Bowden fell victim to the hypocrisy.

Minutes after beating Nebraska Saturday night, Bowden announced that Notre Dame was the second-best team in the country. But when it came time to vote, Bowden wrote in the Cornhuskers, not the Irish, at No. 2. It was a blatant example of a coach manipulating his vote to benefit his own team.

And it happens all the time.

The most disturbing of the accusations--if you can characterize Holtz’s comments as accusations--was the idea that some voters, media representatives and coaches alike, purposely stick it to the Irish.

“The only thing that really disturbs me is the newspaper article about when the field goal went through, 25 or 30 writers broke out into a loud round of applause and started high-fiving each other,” Holtz said.

Holtz was referring to Notre Dame’s last-second loss to Boston College in the final regular-season game for the Irish. Back in Ann Arbor, Mich., several dozen reporters were working on their stories from that day’s Michigan-Ohio State game.

I was in the Wolverine press box and, like everyone else, was glued to the television as Boston College staged its remarkable comeback and upset. As the winning kick went through the uprights, the place did indeed go crazy. I saw high-fives exchanged, heard the yells, even saw one voting sportswriter hug a Michigan sports information official.

But a conspiracy? Doubtful. In fact, the hugging sportswriter recently cast his first-place vote for Notre Dame.

The moral of the story: You might not like Holtz or the Irish, but you can’t help but admire and respect what they have accomplished.

Holtz also can be forgiven for his paranoia. It’s the nature of the business. But to suggest that Notre Dame might have lost a national championship because of a voting bias is to cheapen Florida State’s accomplishments.

There are 62 AP voters and 62 voting coaches. I don’t know about the 36 coaches or the 45 other reporters who cast their ballots for the Seminoles, but my preference for No. 1 had nothing to do with personality. It had to do with performance:

--Florida State won 12 games, Notre Dame 11. Florida State’s opponents had a combined pre-bowl record of 77-57 (57.5%), Notre Dame’s opponents were 59-63 (48.4%). Florida State played two teams with nine victories, one team with 10 and two teams with 11. Notre Dame played a nine-victory, a 10-victory and a 12-victory team.

--Florida State, which went to the Orange Bowl as the No. 1-ranked AP team, beat Nebraska, ranked No. 1 in the coaches’ and coalition polls and No. 2 in the AP. Notre Dame, No. 4 in the AP and coaches’ polls, spent its New Year’s Day defeating the Aggies, who were No. 7 in the AP and No. 6 on the coaches’ list.

As did Florida State, the Irish struggled to a bowl victory.

--Florida State, ranked No. 1 at the time, lost to Notre Dame, 31-24 . . . on the road and with the second-ranked Irish having had two weeks to prepare. Fair enough. But the then-No. 1 Irish lost the next week to then-No. 17 Boston College--the same team that had lost to Northwestern earlier in the season--at home, and gave up 41 points doing it.

Notre Dame’s gag-a-thon against the Eagles nullified all the good it had done by beating Florida State. Yes, Notre Dame outplayed the Seminoles. Yes, Kez McCorvey’s tipped touchdown reception transformed a 31-17 Irish lead to a better-looking 31-24 score. But outplayed or not, Florida State had a chance to tie and possibly win the game in the waning moments.

Holtz says the Game of the Century apparently didn’t count for anything. It did, but so did the Game of the Week against Boston College.

As for the comparison to 1989, when Miami and Notre Dame finished with one loss apiece, but the Hurricanes got the title based on head-to-head competition, we don’t buy Holtz’s reversal in philosophy. In 1989, he argued one way. Four years later, his team in Miami’s position, he gets religion. Interesting.

This was my first year as an AP voter and I’ll shed no tear if it’s my last. But based on a season and not a single game, Florida State was the narrow choice as No. 1. The Seminoles earned it in spite of a poll system badly in need of repair.

Or better yet, in need of a replacement.