Voting Reform is Needed in the USA Today!

(Coaches' Poll, that is)

It seems a bit ridiculous to think that there are certain governments in this world that have a more logical grasp on how to conduct polling exercises than the NCAA does, but sometimes these things happen.


Take, for example, the USA Today Coaches Poll. It seems that for some reason only half of the F...B...S (did I get that right?) coaches are voting each week for the teams they think belong in the Top 25. This, as in any democracy, is no doubt traceable to two main causes:

• Voter Apathy (those who have voted for so long that they have eventually begun to feel their vote has no meaning)

• Voter Suppression (those in power decide to help themselves by preventing "new" voters from participating in the process)

In perusing the list of coaches who vote in the USA Today polls, I noticed that there were only a handful of the former (most notably Joe Paterno, Ralph Friedgen, Urban Meyer, and Pete Carroll), and most likely a whole lot more of the latter (read: new coaches like Ron Prince, Pat Fitzgerald, Jim Harbaugh, and Randy Shannon, plus a slew of successful coaches at smaller schools) who have had some degree of success.

Of course, there are anomalies in all the major conferences. The Big XII North is particularly absurd: Gary Pinkel of Missouri, Mark Mangino of Kansas, and Ron Prince of Kansas State all have no vote. In fact, the only votes the Big XII North has are Bill Callahan, who, in four seasons, managed to take the division's most storied and successful program into its furthest depths of despair; and Dan Hawkins, who is very slowly rescuing Colorado from the same: despair. Gene Chizik is still trying to locate an Internet Service Provider in Ames, Iowa.

In the SEC, things are not quite as unbalanced. Veteran patient coaches Rich Brooks of Kentucky and Bobby Johnson of Vandy did not get votes, yet neither did Nick Saban get to make his feelings known. A fair tradeoff? Fairer than most, more than likely. Ed Orgeron is banging his head against an underpass right now.

The Big 10 (or is it 11 now?) is not quite as clearly defined. We've got the top few perennial spots (Ohio State, Michigan, Wisconsin...sometimes Illinois) voting, but the most hugely glaring absence from this poll rests on the shoulders of Joe Paterno. C'mon, Joe...why don't you validate this? Also noticeably missing are Pat Fitzgerald of Northwestern (possibly the most relevant up-and-comer in the coaching world) and Kirk Ferentz of Iowa (undoubtedly the most overpaid coach in CFB, now that Dennis Franchione is house shopping/keeping/bound.)

The Pac-10 seems happy to sit on its pedestal; the Arizona schools go unrepresented while the Oregon and Washington schools go fully represented, despite the disparity in schedules and outcomes this year. Dorrell was noticeably absent, although that is now a moot point. Surely Mike Doba knows more about how to succeed in the football world.

The Big East...is pretty consistently represented. The ACC...not so much so. While league legend Ralph Friedgen sits on the sideline, rookie coach Butch Davis gets a vote...yet Randy Shannon does not? Shannon has spent almost his entire coaching career at UM while Davis has no ties to UNC. These kinds of inconsistencies in the voting process beg our attention.

Here is the solution:

All 120 FBS teams get one equal vote. Thats right...120 votes as opposed to 60. Think about it...Western Kentucky played six FBS teams this year (and beat one). They even played Florida at The Swamp their first game in existence and only lost 49-3. Why should their vote count less than, say, San Jose State? We need equal representation, whether the coaches want to do it or not. Either every coach votes or those who don't pay a penalty (if not monetarily, then a fractional drop in rankings.) Wipe the slate clean every August and make all new coaches vote along with the old ones. That means that no longer will the coaches of Eastern Michigan, Western Michigan, Florida International, and Florida Atlantic have more say in the rankings than Penn State, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Arizona, Vanderbilt, Florida, Northwestern, Arizona State, Iowa, Miami, USC, Kansas State, and (gasp...) Hawaii! It also means that all those coaches who were too "busy" to sit down and rate a team at the end of each week will now have to make an effort. Come on. If you're making over 500,000 USD+ per year, surely you can devise some system that allows you to watch a few hours of the top CFB highlights each Saturday night and fill out a 25-blank sheet of paper accordingly.

Once we conquer the USA Today, the BCS can't be far behind.