Big Ten coaches remain ambivalent toward college football polls

Ask a college football coach about rankings or polls, and if they don't sneer or roll their eyes, you're probably one of the lucky ones.

As the first College Football Playoff poll looms, rankings are discussed more and more. Coaches don't want to discuss something out of their control, right? They want to focus on winning the next game — but only the next game and not possibly consider there are more after that, remember — and making their team better. That's fair.

Except for the fact that there's a Coaches Poll put out by USA Today each week, for which 65 FBS coaches vote. They literally have control over one set of rankings (the set The Gazette uses, by the way).

College football coaches are busy guys. If their tunnel vision won't allow them to look ahead to any other opponents, how does it allow them to watch other games each week?

Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer, who has a vote, said on Tuesday's Big Ten coaches teleconference he spends '20 minutes to a half-hour' putting his poll together and that 'I have someone do it for me as far as putting together all the statistical data.'

If that's true, and it's not based on what he's actually watching — or any of them, for that matter — should the poll exist?

'I have no idea,' Meyer said.

Meyer's team sits sixth in the latest coaches poll, behind fellow Big Ten cohorts, No. 2 Penn State and No. 5 Wisconsin. Michigan State checks in at No. 18, while Michigan held on at No. 25.

The Badgers' head coach, Paul Chryst, rejected the premise of rankings questions out of hand on Tuesday. Chryst isn't a voter, which backs up his saying, 'all I care about is being the best team we can be this week, and at the end of the year, you earn what you earn.'

Among Big Ten coaches, Meyer is joined on the voting panel by Penn State's James Franklin, Nebraska's Mike Riley, Minnesota's P.J. Fleck, Maryland's D.J. Durkin, Michigan State's Mark Dantonio and Purdue's Jeff Brohm.

The poll has been around since 1950, when it originally was a top 20 published by United Press International. It gave coaches the voice in a set of rankings they believed — and many still believe now — they deserve. It's not uncommon for athletes or coaches to express distaste with how media members view their teams, and especially how they're ranked.

In central Iowa, for example, Iowa State is ranked in the Associated Press poll at No. 25 for the first time since 2005. The Cyclones, including Coach Matt Campbell, are understandably proud of that. In this week's coaches poll, Michigan got the No. 25 spot with 121 points. Iowa State sits 27th, but had just 32 points.

So which poll is more right? The one which Campbell and 64 other coaches are a voters for, or the one media members vote for?

That unanswerable question is one reason why Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz and Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald said they declined to be included as voters. Ferentz and Fitzgerald both said they don't have the time to properly dedicate to watching enough of the other teams to have a proper gauge on who belongs where.

'I could tell you about our team, but outside of the teams we see on our exchanges (of film), you really don't see much college football — at least I don't,' Ferentz said. 'Maybe (other coaches) watch more TV than I do. I'll share this with you: years ago, a long time ago, I thought it was stupid the media had a poll. Why wouldn't coaches be the ones to select it? Once I started becoming a coach, it made sense. The media have a much better vantage point than most coaches do.

'Like I know Alabama's got a good team, but I could name one player. Maybe two. I know they have a good football team, but I haven't seen them this year, so I'll take everybody else's word for it.'

Even if Ferentz is giving a nod to media for being able to watch more football, the truth is no poll can ever be exact because it's all subjective. And there's nothing to say the media members eligible to vote all spend hours poring over stats and records to make their polls, either.

The first College Football Playoff ranking — the one that matters most in terms of the year-end national semifinal, which ultimately will determine the national champion — comes out Oct. 31. The committee uses a number of factors to determine their rankings, and yes, the AP and Coaches Polls are factored in, mostly when considering teams who have beat ranked opponents and where.

Polls and rankings are fun debate fuel. Coaches don't want or need to debate because the answers to who's better come on the field — for the most part, anyway.

Fitzgerald highlighted something Meyer touched on, in that many coaches — again, because of time restraints — have their communications or sports information directors gather data or even do their voting. Riley, who has plenty on his plate at Nebraska right now, said he spends time with a group he's put together to help him make informed decisions, and agreed with Fitzgerald that the poll has meaning and validity because the coaches deserve the platform. He did add, though, that if it went away, 'frankly, I don't think I would miss it.'

'I think it's a privilege to be able to have that voting right, and I think coaches should have a voice,' Fitzgerald said. 'I think it's important we do it and if you are a coach that participates in it, you need to do it. You can't have your athletics communications director do it for you. You've got to be all in and do it. It's a challenge. That's why I choose not to do it. I'm not going to go into it half rear-ended.'

l Comments: (319) 368-8884; jeremiah.davis@thegazette.com