Coaches All Tripped in Poll Vault

Dear coaches: You whistle-blowing, clipboard-toting, poll-caving, sentimental saps.

Here all these years we thought you were holed up nights watching opponent film when it’s obvious the tapes in those video recorders had to be “Love Story.”

Got a stray puppy?

Send it along to the 32 coaches who voted Nebraska No. 1 in Saturday’s final USA Today/ESPN coaches’ poll. Those mush-hearts couldn’t refuse it. You should see these guys at coaching conventions, sneaking off with their tissue boxes to watch John Tesh replays of great Olympic gymnastic moments.

Can you believe the coaches fell for it, all that CBS-produced, soft-focused campaigning for Nebraska? It was Tom Osborne’s last game, set to orchestral music--”You’ve just got to vote him a share of the national title” blah, blah, blah.

Listen, nothing against Nebraska, which beat up pretty good on gimpy-kneed quarterback Peyton Manning and the Tennessee Volunteers, or perhaps you didn’t notice how fast able-bodied Tennessee backup quarterback Tee Martin drove his team for a score late in the game.

Once again, the coaches got it wrong.

In Saturday’s final poll tallies, 12-0 Michigan captured the Associated Press national championship but, in a dramatic change of bleeding hearts, enough X-and-O men in the coaches’ poll changed their votes to award 13-0 Nebraska a share of the crown.

Michigan, with a comfortable lead in both polls entering the bowls, won the AP poll handily, receiving 51 1/2 out of 70 first-place votes.

The coaches’ poll was a photo finish, however, with Nebraska narrowly edging Michigan in first-place ballots, 32-30, and in total points, 1,520 to 1,516.

The difference between the polls is degrees of credibility. While the AP makes public the names of its voters, the coaches’ poll is anonymous.

Despite Michigan’s Rose Bowl victory on Thursday, 24 coaches switched their first-place votes to Nebraska.

Don’t we at least deserve to know who they are?

Enough coaches obviously were swayed by outgoing Cornhusker Coach Osborne’s impressive 42-17 victory over the Volunteers, which was televised on CBS, employees of which should be awarded national title rings for their invaluable contributions to the Nebraska cause.

It was CBS, desperate to make its game meaningful, which kept up the steady drumbeat for a national-title split during the broadcast, filling voters’ minds with interesting if not one-sided propaganda to support Nebraska’s case.

There were probing graphics: Nebraska’s decided advantage against Michigan in scoring average and average margin of victory, never bothering to mention the Huskers scored 59 points against 2-9 Akron and 77 against 1-10 Iowa State.

Never mentioned in this self-serving, ratings-motivated siege was that Nebraska trailed Central Florida, in Lincoln, at the half on Sept. 13 before squeaking out a 38-24 victory.

Central Florida finished 5-6.

Or that, on Nov. 28, Nebraska barely hung on to beat Colorado, 27-24, in Boulder.

Colorado finished 5-6.

Never mentioned was the fact that Michigan defeated six ranked teams--at the time the game was played--to Nebraska’s three, and that Michigan’s victory over Washington State was its eighth in a row against a top-10 ranked opponent.

Still, the whole national-title question might have been settled had CBS and coaches’ poll partner, ESPN, posed this simple question in the great Michigan-Nebraska debate:

How many games did Michigan win this season on a last-second play in which its receiver dropped a ball in his opponent’s end zone but, as he was falling down, miraculously kicked it in the air--illegally, the player acknowledged--only to have a teammate snatch it for a touchdown before it hit the ground?

Or perhaps you were away Nov. 8, when Nebraska pulled off this Houdini act--Scott Frost’s pass to Matt Davison’s hands via Shevin Wiggins’ foot--against Missouri to force overtime and an eventual Cornhuskers’ victory.

Did CBS mention Missouri finished 7-5 and was clobbered in the Holiday Bowl by Colorado State, a member of the Western Athletic Conference, a collection of schools deemed too lowly to be allowed into the alliance?

So, you ask, how many teams forced Michigan to overtime this season?

None.

So, you ask, how many games did Michigan win by three points or fewer?

None.

The joke is the coaches themselves, far less sentimental before they knew Osborne was retiring, dropped Nebraska two positions in the poll, from first to third, after the tainted Missouri victory.

If coaches were influenced by their last impressions, reckoning Nebraska’s final performance in the Orange Bowl outweighed Michigan’s five-point win over Washington State in the Rose Bowl, shouldn’t they now retroactively vote Penn State a share of the 1994 title?

Let’s review that bowl sequence: Penn State crushed Oregon, 38-20, in the ’95 Rose Bowl to finish 12-0, while Nebraska had to rally to beat Miami, 24-17, in the Orange Bowl, to finish 13-0.

Yet, the coaches voted Nebraska No. 1.

It seems obvious now that Penn State could have clinched a share of the title had only Coach Joe Paterno announced he was retiring beforehand.

This weekend’s poll potboiler, of course, will only further the cries for a playoff system in college football.

Unfortunately, it’s not going to happen soon because Division I college presidents do not want it; nor do bowl directors, who think their bread-and-butter games already have become diminished enough.

Saturday, we posed the playoff question to Pacific 10 Conference Commissioner Tom Hansen.

So, the Big Ten is staunchly against a playoff?

“Yes,” Hansen said.

And the Rose Bowl?

“Yes,” Hansen said.

And the Pac-10?

“Yes,” Hansen said.

Not only that, the super alliance recently signed a seven-year contract with ABC. The deal can be changed or even terminated after four years, but, until then, all playoff bets are off.

“We all have contracts with ABC and the respective bowl games for the next four years,” Hansen said.

College football’s best hope is that the new alliance, which next year will include the Rose Bowl, will stem the public outrage.

Had the super alliance been in place this year, No. 1 Michigan and No. 2 Nebraska would have settled their national-title dispute on the field.

“I just think we go on to next year and see if the alliance doesn’t solve the problems as well as any playoff ever could,” Hansen said.

Until then, voting coaches can continue to take their cues from the gambling casinos. One Las Vegas bookmaker said that Nebraska would be a seven-point favorite against Michigan if the teams were to play today.

Well, there, what more did coaches need to know?

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and people vote for different reasons,” Osborne said Saturday morning. “My feeling is that the vote should be determined by which team would be favored over every other team at the end of the year. Regardless of when they won their last national championship or which coach is retiring and all the sidebars, that really shouldn’t enter into it. Apparently enough coaches felt that way, that we would be favored over anybody. We might not win. We might play Michigan and get beat. But I think they felt we’d be favored.”

Remember that quote the next time a coach expounds the evils of gambling or chases a reporter off the field for asking him about the point spread.

Hey, instead of a playoff, why not let Vegas oddsmakers determine the national champion, pairing the top two teams in the Las Vegas Bowl based on how they fared against the spread during the season?

That way, players can get in on some of the action.

If Osborne was smart, of course, he’d unretire now, return next season and bow out again before next year’s Fiesta Bowl.

That way, Osborne could almost assuredly wrap up another coaches’ share of the national title.

Heck, the coaches might not even care if Nebraska was 8-3.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Split Decisions

Split champions in college football:

1997: Michigan (AP), Nebraska (Coaches)

1991: Miami (AP), Washington (Coaches)

1990: Colorado (AP), Ga. Tech (Coaches)

1978: Alabama (AP), USC (UPI)

1974: Oklahoma (AP), USC (UPI)

1973: Notre Dame (AP), Alabama (UPI)

1970: Nebraska (AP), Texas (UPI)

1965: Alabama (AP), Michigan St. (UPI)

1957: Auburn (AP), Ohio St. (UP)

1954: Ohio St (AP), UCLA (UP)

1939: Texas (A&M;), USC (Dickinson)

1938: TCU (AP), Notre Dame (Dickinson)

A Difference of Opinion

FINAL AP POLL

No.,Team: Record

1. Michigan: 12-0

2. Nebraska: 13-0

3. Florida St.: 11-1

4. Florida: 10-2

5. UCLA: 10-2

FINAL COACHES’ POLL

1. Nebraska: 13-0

2. Michigan: 12-0

3. Florida State: 11-1

4. North Carolina: 11-1

5. UCLA: 10-2