[Overpaid Slacker]

dd -- there's more than half a chance that whoever wins the Rose Bowl could get the AP half of the title.

It kills me that one of the reasons we're saddled w/ this ridiculous system is the split title in 97. Tom Osborne (sp?) announced his retirement and three votes swung from Mich to Nebraska -- Nothing else happened during the break between the regular season and the bowls. A nice, big sentimental farewell tongue kiss from the Coaches' Poll.

[Incidentally, a few years earlier, the Coaches helped Nebraska manage to hose undefeated Penn State out of a National Title] So we get the BCS to make everything OK. Except that, magically, Nebraska (has that name come up lately?) gets in two years ago despite not winning its conference. It's crap; it's complicated crap, but it's still crap.

The Coaches' Poll is an absolute joke, rife w/ opportunities for strategic behavior (in 1997, John Cooper, Ohio State head coach, ranked Michigan THIRD after Mich beat O State -- um, yeah) and, more often than not the AD's fill out the polls. Do you want your coach, who is likely to be the highest paid employee of your state (assuming it's a state school, obviously) to be watching every other game played, reviewing tape, etc. for teams he'll never play, just to come up w/ an informed Coaches' Poll ballot? NFW.

{whew. rant over.}
JP