Yet Another Reason Why BCS Was a Flop

Did members of the USA Today/ESPN coaches’ poll conspire in an attempt to keep Nebraska out of the Rose Bowl?

That seems highly unlikely, but the fact is we’ll never know what really happened because the coaches’ vote is anonymous and the newspaper that co-sponsors the poll is contractually obligated to sit on the story.

These are interesting concepts if you accept the precepts that coaches should expect accountability from their players and news organizations should be in the business of publishing truth where they find it.

However, the Dec. 9 unveiling of the final bowl championship series rankings revealed just how messy this alliance--some would call it unholy--can get.

What’s more, it was only by the razor-thin margin of five-hundredths of a point that a raging college football controversy was saved from rumblings of a rigged election.

A quick review: Before the Dec. 8 weekend games, the BCS standings had Miami on top, followed by Tennessee, Nebraska, Colorado and Oregon.

When Louisiana State defeated Tennessee in the Southeastern Conference title game, the situation appeared clear: Nebraska, Colorado and Oregon would move up one spot in the BCS and Miami would face Nebraska in the Rose Bowl.

How could one reach this conclusion?

The BCS is based on a points system comprising four components: the average of the writers’ and coaches’ polls, computers, strength of schedule and losses.

Nebraska held a 1.49 lead over Colorado entering the final weekend and both schools were idle. The only chance Colorado had of passing Nebraska for the No. 2 spot was if the coaches’ poll, which had one-loss Nebraska ranked ahead of two-loss Colorado, flipped Nebraska and Colorado in its final rankings.

The Associated Press poll had already bumped Colorado ahead of Nebraska as a result of the Buffaloes’ 62-36 victory in Boulder on Nov. 23.

The coaches were late on the switch, however, yet any manipulating of Colorado-Nebraska on a weekend neither school played could be construed as suspicious.

Well, guess what, that’s exactly what happened. The coaches flip-flopped the schools, and it was nearly enough in the points system to knock Nebraska out of the Rose Bowl and put two-loss Colorado in.

Nebraska held on to its Rose Bowl berth by 0.05, yet it enraged many Cornhuskers that a faction of voting coaches became turncoats.

“I’d like to think I wouldn’t manipulate anything,” Nebraska Coach Frank Solich, one of the 60 voting coaches, said last week.

Cornhusker offensive tackle Dave Volk said what the coaches did was unethical.

“Unethical?” Grant Teaff, executive director for the American Football Coaches Assn., responded this week. “I’d say he should talk to his coach, Frank Solich, and if they think that way they should file charges.”

Teaff called conspiracy talk nonsense.

Several coaches, however, did have to flip-flop Nebraska and Colorado for the schools to change positions in the coaches’ last poll.

In the next-to-last poll, Nebraska held a 55-point lead over Colorado.

In the final coaches’ poll, Colorado edged out Nebraska by three points, 1,337 to 1,334.

Teaff said the coaches his organization represents simply made the switch after a week of reflection. Or, it could have been a case of trying to correct a mistake from the previous poll.

In the end, didn’t Colorado really deserve to be ahead of Nebraska?

Teaff is clear on this point: He said there was no collective move to knock Nebraska out.

“Coaches don’t get together on the telephone and say, ‘Let’s straighten this out,”’ Teaff said. “Coaches don’t give a hoot or a holler what anyone thinks. It’s an individual thing.”

UCLA’s Bob Toledo, a voting coach who refused in a Tuesday phone interview to say how he voted, said it was not unethical for coaches to change their minds on Colorado-Nebraska during a week neither team played.

“You know, it’s like anything,” Toledo said. “All of a sudden, you have more time to evaluate and your opinion changes.”

Everyone understands that polls are subjective. Opinions can change as often as Notre Dame changes coaches.

In 1997, the coaches dropped Michigan from No. 1 to No. 2 in their final poll after the Wolverines won the Rose Bowl. The coaches anointed Nebraska as their No. 1 team after the Cornhuskers’ victory over Tennessee in the Orange Bowl.

You can argue all you want about that decision--and did we ever--but at least the coaches made the switch after both Michigan and Nebraska had played games.

The Associated Press writers are not immune from criticism. They’ve had their share of embarrassments over the years, but the difference is profound.

The AP poll is public. If an AP writer casts a No. 1 vote for Rutgers, you can identify the dope and blast him for it.

The coaches, however, work under the veil of secrecy, and UCLA’s Toledo wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I wouldn’t want other coaches to know who I’m voting for,” Toledo said. “Because we’re all in the same profession, and we don’t want other coaches mad at us.”

Secrecy, however, ultimately undermines the coaches’ credibility.

Teaff says the coaches’ votes are anonymous because, well, it has always been that way.

“I dare say if the coaches wanted to make it public, it could be done,” Teaff said.

So why not do it?

Because coaches don’t want their votes made public and their hidden agendas known. You only need to go back to 1995, when two coaches anonymously drop-kicked Florida to 11th and 13th in the final poll after the Gators lost the national title game to Nebraska.

You think, just maybe, that was an anti-Steve Spurrier retaliation?

The recent Colorado-Nebraska controversy also has put USA Today in an uncomfortable position.

The paper is a co-sponsor of the coaches’ poll but couldn’t report how the coaches voted last week even though it was responsible for tabulating the results.

Jim Welch, the paper’s deputy managing editor for sports, says USA Today’s sponsorship of the poll is separate from its news-gathering operation.

“Is there some cost as a news organization on this?” Welch said. “Sure. Because potentially, at least theoretically, you can find at times you have information that could be interesting.”

Welch had that information last week but couldn’t forward it to his reporters.

Which coaches switched their vote? Was it Joe Paterno? Bob Toledo?

How about George O’Leary?

Yep, the coach who was forced to resign last week as Notre Dame coach for fabricating biographical information is a voter in this year’s coaches’ poll.

Welch said any of his writers could have tried to obtain the coaches’ voting information independently, but that USA Today is not allowed to provide coaches’ confidential phone numbers that are required to assemble the weekly poll.

Welch said there is definitely a journalistic-business trade-off.

“On balance, we feel our involvement is something positive for us and positive for the game,” he said.

Welch said he personally wishes the coaches’ votes were made public, but the anonymity clause is part of the contract with the AFCA. He said USA Today, a few years back, fought and won the right to publish the names of the 60 voting coaches each year.

As for possible chicanery, Welch said he closely monitors the coaches for any suspicious voting patterns and he has, in the past, revoked voting privileges from coaches.

Welch said he was “very aware” of how scrutinized this year’s final coaches’ poll would be regarding the positions of Colorado and Nebraska but said there were no voting shifts dramatic enough to warrant an inquiry.

“We were going to guarantee that was not going to happen,” Welch said. “Was there some movement? Obviously. People may have taken another look.”

Welch said there is often a one-week “lag period” in voting trends, a second-look adjustment after a week of reflection. It is not often, though, that this poll-tweaking has such a dramatic impact on the national title race and captures public attention.

Toledo said he votes in the coaches’ poll because he is asked but admits it can be a messy business.

“I think it’s part of my job, although it is a pain in the neck. We don’t have all the answers. That’s why you need a playoff system, OK?”

OK.

Hurry-Up Offense

A lot of people still are wondering how there could be such disparity in the BCS computer regarding the strength of Oregon. The Ducks finished No. 2 in the writers’ and coaches’ polls but a distant fourth in the final BCS standings, 1.44 points behind No. 2 Nebraska. The answer is simple: The four BCS computers that still factor margin of victory--David Rothman, Jeff Sagarin, Scripps-Howard and Peter Wolfe--hammered Oregon for winning close games. Rest assured, Rothman, which ranked Oregon No. 8, isn’t going to get any Christmas cards postmarked from Eugene. In defending his rating, Rothman said, “Oregon had five wins this season by one touchdown or less, and that is why they are so low.”

Oregon’s average in the four computers that consider margin of victory was 7. Conversely, Oregon’s average rank in the four BCS computers that don’t consider margin of victory was 2.75, which more closely reflects the Ducks’ poll rankings. BCS officials made a big stink last spring about diminishing the effect of margin of victory and asked computers to either eliminate or greatly diminish the component. In the four computers that still consider it, there is a 21-point “cap” on wins, but it still wasn’t enough to rescue Oregon, which finished 2.66 points behind Nebraska in the computer average.

One more O’Leary factor: In announcing his resignation as Notre Dame coach last week, O’Leary claimed it was a mistake of his ambitious youth that led to his falsifying his academic and playing background. However, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution obtained records showing that, before O’Leary became Georgia Tech coach in 1994, he submitted a resume that said he had received a master’s degree from New York University’s Stony Brook College.