College Football Coaches Choose Darkness: Coaches Poll Changes in 2010

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Urban Meyer:  “I think at some point you have to trust the people who vote.”  Urban wants fans to take a “leap of faith” after observing four years of clear bias in voting for conference teams. 

For 2008, conference coaches tended to vote for each other’s teams. Pac-10 – 2.3 spots, WAC – 2.0 spots, Big 10 – 1.6 Big East -1.6, Big 12 – 1.6, ACC – 1.5, Conference USA – 1.5, SEC – 1.3, MWC – 0.1, MAC – -0.6. 

In other words, if you have a team competing for the top 25 in any conference except the MWC and MAC last year, you could expect an average boost by conference coaches of 1.7 spots!!

Six of the seven Big 10 coaches included Iowa in their top 25.  Boston College was named on four of the six ACC coaches ballots.  SEC coaches were not as uniform with regards to Mississippi.   Five of the seven coaches boosted the Rebels higher on their ballots.  Mississippi was bumped up 15 spots by Les Miles, 10 by Urban Meyer, 5 by Phil Fulmer, and 4 by Mark Richt. 

Tommy Tuberville listed them one spot higher, Sylvester Croom one spot lower, and Steve Spurrier three spots lower.  Miles and Meyer lost to Mississippi, while Spurrier beat them.  Does that mean these coaches are more impacted by head-to-head conference matches and less able to evaluate other teams nationally over the course of a season?   

Tommy Bowden was king of Conference Boosting.  Though he lost his job at Clemson in mid-October, he kept his vote and voted five ACC teams in the top 25—Georgia Tech 10th (7 spot boost), Virginia Tech 13th (+6), Boston College 16th  (+10), Florida State 21st (+7), North Carolina 25th (+6).  

His ACC advocacy resulted in his voting five conference teams 34 total spots higher than their results, an average of 6.8!! 

Regional Voting – Florida vs. Texas

In addition to the six SEC coaches voting Florida No. 1, the five other coaches in Florida ranked the Gators either No. 1 or No. 2.  Mario Cristobel, Florida International, and Howard Schellenberg, Florida Atlantic, ranked the Gators as No. 1 - as did Tommy Bowden. 

FSU’s Bobby Bowden, USF’s Jim Leavitt and UCF’s George O’Leary voted Florida No. 2, and former Florida coaches Steve Spurrier and Ron Zook. 

Of the nine votes for SEC Champion and eventual National Champion Florida as No. 3, five came from Big 12 coaches, two from non-Big 12 Texas coaches and two from Big 10 coaches. 

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