Dan Levy/TSB: SI Forcing the AFCA’s Hand With Coaches’ Poll Ballot Requests
From Levy at the Sporting Blog:
The process by which two teams are chosen to compete for the BCS National Championship is both convoluted and secretive by design. There’s one part computer score…
Then there’s the Harris Poll…
Last comes the USA Today Coaches poll, which year after year is where most of the shadiness lies. In the past few seasons, coaches only had to make their final vote public, enabling coaches to finagle with the rankings throughout the season. Starting in 2010, the rule to provide the final ballot from each coach will be repealed by the AFCA, allowing for even more cloak and/or dagger with the poll.
Sports Illustrated’s Andy Staples has seen enough. Well, I guess in this case, he hasn’t seen enough. Staples wrote a column yesterday indicating SI will be sending Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to every public university with a football coach who is a voter — 59 in all. And what looked like a ‘hey guess what we’re going to do’ threat and nothing more in his column, Staples was true to his word, sending out 51 of the 59 requests yesterday, with the rest coming today.
