Read this in my local newspaper this morning. Found it interesting. Some fact mixed with some opinion.........As if there needs to be another reason to wish for a playoff structure in college football.
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A bit of deception in coaches' slant pattern
This week, the individual votes by the coaches who make up the ESPN/USA Today college football poll were revealed. And the lesson should be that bias - so often said to be rampant in the media - is alive and well in the coaching ranks.
At SI.com, Stewart Mandel picked out some examples of coaches, like most of us, operate out of self-interest - or some odd logic.
Oregon coach Mike Bellotti, hoping his team would get a Bowl Championship Series bowl spot, voted his own team fourth while placing the Ducks' rival for a BCS spot, Notre Dame, at No. 9.
In the same vein, Ohio State's Jim Tressel, up against Oregon for one of those BCS berths, voted his Buckeyes fourth and Oregon ninth.
It may be almost heaven, but Arkansas' Houston Nutt completely forgot about West Virginia, leaving the Big East champion out of his Top 25. :nutkick
According to an analysis by the Notre Dame blog "Blue-Gray Sky," "Eight of the 13 coaches who voted Oregon seventh or lower came from the two conferences that had teams vying with the Ducks for a BCS at-large spot, SEC [Auburn] and Big Ten [Ohio State]."
Then again, maybe all of those votes were just honest opinions. As in, those coaches honestly want to help themselves and their conferences.
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A bit of deception in coaches' slant pattern
This week, the individual votes by the coaches who make up the ESPN/USA Today college football poll were revealed. And the lesson should be that bias - so often said to be rampant in the media - is alive and well in the coaching ranks.
At SI.com, Stewart Mandel picked out some examples of coaches, like most of us, operate out of self-interest - or some odd logic.
Oregon coach Mike Bellotti, hoping his team would get a Bowl Championship Series bowl spot, voted his own team fourth while placing the Ducks' rival for a BCS spot, Notre Dame, at No. 9.
In the same vein, Ohio State's Jim Tressel, up against Oregon for one of those BCS berths, voted his Buckeyes fourth and Oregon ninth.
It may be almost heaven, but Arkansas' Houston Nutt completely forgot about West Virginia, leaving the Big East champion out of his Top 25. :nutkick
According to an analysis by the Notre Dame blog "Blue-Gray Sky," "Eight of the 13 coaches who voted Oregon seventh or lower came from the two conferences that had teams vying with the Ducks for a BCS at-large spot, SEC [Auburn] and Big Ten [Ohio State]."
Then again, maybe all of those votes were just honest opinions. As in, those coaches honestly want to help themselves and their conferences.
