I read today, quite hidden in the Post’s sports section, that the Football Coaches Association has announced that as of 2010 the final USA Today (a.k.a. Coaches Poll) will become anonymous. To some this may seem a minor change but to me it is a massively significant modification.

The Coaches Poll makes up one-third of the factors of who will play in the BCS championship game and to remove all accountability from the final (and most important vote) also removes all credibility of the poll. You might as well make every week anonymous if coaches will be free to put down whatever they want in the final and all-important vote.

This further dilutes the BCS as well. The BCS was already flawed in many ways, but we did have some balance between computer polls and human rankings. Thankfully the Harris poll will remain mid-season and will disclose votes (though counting Terry Bradshaw seems like a strike against the system) but the Harris often mimics the lead of the Coaches and AP polls since many of the members of the panel are made up of mainstream sports personalities, major conference presidents, and even a woman (oh shut up — until a woman has coached or played a significant role in a football game I can say that it’s bullshit). Bullshit + Bullshit + Computers = Terminator Salvation (26% Rotten Tomatoes rating).

What would be MUCH more important and helpful to the process if we did away with the awful preseason poll that is based largely on hype, fluff, and Katie Perry’s vagina antics. The preseason poll unnessarily “locks” in coaches to vote the same throughout the season, so long as nothing major happens (basically a loss for a ranked team or a top 10 knocking off another top 10). If you want to improve the system and give the coaches more freedom, don’t lock coaches in to a pre-season estimation based on nothing more than what is left of a flickering flame from a team’s performance 7 months earlier in the year and estimations on how graduating seniors and incoming young blood will impact a program.

Rant ends here.