AFCA Drops The Ball On Coach's Poll 'Changes'

In a news release posted on their website late this morning, the American Football Coaches Association announced various procedural changes to the USA Today coach’s poll, changes which will be implemented starting in 2010.The AFCA charged Gallup World Poll organization with the duty of conducting an independent study of the voting process and suggesting any changes that would ostensibly improve the way the coach’s poll is conducted.”The Board was confident in the basic integrity of the poll, and the monitoring system in place by USA TODAY,” AFCA Executive Director Grant Teaff said in a statement. “However, the trustees wanted to make it even better by reviewing all of the elements and methodology involved.”We commend the Gallup Poll organization for its contributions and the professional way they approached this project. It resulted in providing the AFCA with unbiased and objective recommendations related to the way in which the poll is used to determine the nation’s top 25 collegiate football teams.”(The entire release can be viewed right here.)Among the changes announced are voters will be selected on a random basis each fall; coaches continuing to be allowed to vote for their own teams; eliminating a ‘bonus voter’ system based on ranking success of a conference’s teams in the previous year’s poll; and eliminating the release of the individual coach’s final end of the regular season ballot.It’s the last “improvement” that’s left me scratching my head and various other body parts.If I’m correct, the goal of this independent study was to improve the USA Today coach’s poll.How, then, does ripping the last shred of transparency from the process achieve that?  Yes, that’s what this process needs, additional secrecy and even less accountability.Instead of doing the proper thing — make all ballots every week public — the AFCA takes the advice of an admittedly esteemed polling group and tosses the results behind an Iron Curtain.It boggles the mind what goes through the heads of those in charge of the game of college football at multiple levels.