The College Football Polls (A true story)

by John Fricke
Fox Sports Net
page 3

By the middle of the first year most of the pre-game media notes we were reading (from those sent to us around the nation by snail mail in the days before the internet) were quoting our poll right along side the AP and UPI (and virtually none were quoting ESPN). We received so much "bad press" that it served to give us more importance and began to solidify our standing as the true "3rd major poll." So much that within a couple of seasons the AP admitted as much... and expanded its poll from 20 to 25 teams. It was at that point we knew we had something.

At the end of the second football season of the poll we had another idea. The AP and UPI national champs were crowned (and the AP oddly enough still is to this day) the day AFTER the national title game (or in this case.. January 2nd in the pre-BCS days). We thought we could get a jump on the other two. Have our trophy in hand at the title game. As soon as the game was over present it live on CNN to the winning coach. Have USA Today help with the presentation and then.. plaster that picture of the title winning coach and our trophy on the front page of USA Today the next morning before the others had even declared their "National Champion". In other words, to hell with them... we at CNN will decide who the national champ really is. Again it worked.

January 1989. Notre Dame vs. West Virginia for the title at the Fiesta Bowl. The AP still hadn't caught on. By this time the UPI poll was dead in the water and the CNN/USA Today Top 25 was the second major poll. I spoke with both head coaches prior to the game and told Don Nehlen and Lou Holtz that, if they won, we'd have the trophy ready to give to them live on CNN when the game was over. Game ends, Notre Dame wins, Holtz runs into the media tent to see 300 writers. He gives them a 60-second "boy am I glad we won" speech and then says "sorry guys, gotta run.. CNN is giving me my trophy live in 2 minutes". I have never witnessed more angry writers in my life (personal note: I can't say I blame them, i'd have been mad too).

In my opinion CNN made a couple of mistakes after that point. The first was to let the coaches association talk them into (or maybe CNN solicited them I can't say) into taking over the CNN/USA Today top 25. The second was to let USA Today walk with the poll and take it to ESPN.

Funny thing. Now that the coaches are back in there is no question that many (if not most) media outlets use the AP poll exclusively.

And to think that Peter Brewington (the writer from USA Today assigned to tabulating his votes) and I had to scramble on Saturday night to get people on both of our staffs to fill out their polls so we could get them finished. To have the power to decide who might or might not make a bowl, save a coaches job, earn enough attention to merit a televised game the following season.

Never kid yourself. The polls matter. A lot. I just wonder if the coaches ever figured that out.

John Fricke