In a backward move that only hurts the BCS, a report is stating that the final ballots will once again not be published starting with the 2010 season. I guess Spurrier is free to vote Duke and we’ll never truly know it was him (though we’d have a good idea). Transparency and open balloting, as is the standard here at the BCS Fan Poll, has proven to be an effective way to eliminate systematic bias and not allow bad votes. Now, coaches will be able to vote without having the time or knowledge of who the better teams are, and there is no scrutiny. Geogia’s Mark Richt has it right when he says “I didn’t mind opening up my vote. I vote myself. I don’t give it to a GA (graduate assistant coach). I literally will sit up. I don’t usually sleep after a game anyway, and I might call my vote in at 1 or 2 in the morning and I try to make it make sense. I want to be able to defend my vote every week whether it’s public or not.” (Source) We’ll remember that Mark. Expect to see us ask for your poll weekly. We agree that you should be able to defend (have a reason) for your ballot.

Florida’s Urban Meyer is on the other side and puts his belief in administrator oversight. “Obviously Grant Teaff and the people who oversee it will look at it, and if someone’s voting and it doesn’t make much sense, I think they’ll pull their ballot.” What is Teaff misses something? Shouldn’t we have more views looking at it? He obviously didn’t pull the ballot from Spurrier voting for Duke, so if he won’t do that, what would it take?

At least they are delaying this implementation for a season which gives them more time to think about it.  “Something that appears to all the world as so dramatically important, people need to think about it and do their research if they want to, which nobody has done but us,” Teaff said. Really? We’ve done some research right here for the past 3 seasons. Our system works and is the exact opposite of yours. Weird how a company you hired told you the results you wanted.

Way to step backwards BCS.

Two other changes, recommended by the Gallup World Poll organization, were declined by the AFCA. Proposals to make voting anonymous (which then negates the purpose of keeping the ballots secret, right?) and the elimination of the pre-season poll.

Sadly, there is no mention of the problems of coaches deciding their own fate and the problems that causes.

Source

We here at the BCS Fan Poll think more transparency is a good thing. AFCA executive director Grant Teaff said “The perception is that there’s a huge bias, and we’ve never really found that.” Really? Voting Duke #25 because they were your past employer, despite the team not having won a game in over 2 seasons in a pre-season poll isn’t bias? Coaches they vote their conference teams up higher isn’t bias? How can we eliminate these biases with more secrecy? All polls should be public at all times. Coaches that complain they can’t vote they way they want because their poll is public, and they feel obligated to vote a certain way, are wrong on both accounts: They are fueled by the bias the public expects them to have (and they give in to), and their “desired” poll is probably wrong because of their own personal bias. We have proven that an open system eliminates the bias and produces a more trustworthy poll. Isn’t that what the AFCA really wants: The fans to trust their poll is accurate?

AFCA president Dick Tomey, the coach at San Jose State, said he was pleased with the survey results. We can only wait until the results are made public before too much criticism, but I expect fans to be less than pleased with the results.

Source

If you don’t see a group you want, you can request a group in the forums. Are you part of another website that would like to have their top 25 automatically calculated by this website? Just have the members there create a free account here, and request a group and have each member join (or the group leader can subscribe them). It sounds a lot more complicated than it is.

http://twitter.com/PeteCarroll

Here are the locations for the next four national championship games:

–2010: The Rose Bowl; Pasadena, CA

–2011: University of Phoenix Stadium; Glendale, AZ

–2012: Louisiana Superdome; New Orleans, LA

–2013: Dolphin Stadium; Miami Gardens, FL

2008 was a good growing season for the site. We invented the Brandon Rule, and had some good (and bad) discussions about what the site is really trying to do. Hopefully we can continue our success in growing and achieving greater numbers voting as an official pollster. Only one minor change for the site is planned during the off season: A new web hosting company, which will (hopefully) increase the speed and reliability of the site. The back-end calculations will compute faster and therefore be rendered faster when you load each page. If you have any suggestions for changes to the site, the suggestion box is always open: admin@bcsfanpoll.com.

Thanks for the great 2008 and we look forward to seeing you again in July for a great 2009! Good luck with the long off-season.

There are a lot of great discussions going on in the forums. Check it out. There are several applications still going on for this week as well.

For the rest of the season, the polls will be closed until AFTER the BCS National Championship Game, where it will open for 1 week. All official pollsters must submit a ballot during that time period. Official pollsters are not forced or required to vote for the BCS National Champion as their #1 vote, and a honor challenge based upon that will be dismissed quickly and rejected. Non-official pollsters that reach their 4th week of polling, entitling them to apply for official status after the final poll, may do so immediately after they submit their poll.

The pick ‘em game will have selected bowl games and be open once the games are entered (if you want a specific game, just let me, MECU, know) until shortly before the first game begins.

Thank you everyone for making the BCS Fan Poll a great site again this season. Help spread the word to make next season even better.

In un-boring news, we have 4 applications currently going on. Please go to the forums Application Center and vote!