Football Coaches Have A Sense of Humor

If a college football coach votes in the forest and no one is there to hear it, did he really vote?

After the 2004 Texas-California BCS debacle (not to be confused with the various BCS travesties from other years), the powers-at-be determined that the final vote in the USA Today / Coaches Poll should be made public for all to mock, I mean, review.

College football being college football, public scrutiny hasn’t prevented certain coaches’ ballots from ranging in rationality from the merely laughable to the sublimely ludicrous. Check out this article in the LA Times detailing the best (in terms of humor) and worst (in terms of plausibility) from the 2008 edition of inexplicable coaching logic.

Some of the ballots sampled here aren’t completely ridiculous–for example, I’ll give Texas Tech’s Mike Leach voting his squad #2 in a last-ditch effort to salvage a BCS Championship Game rematch versus Oklahoma.  The Red Raiders’ only loss was to the Sooners, and they did beat Texas.  But some of the others… really?

My favorite has to be Missouri’s Gary Pinkel awarding Georgia Tech of the woeful ACC a #9 ranking ahead of both remaining undefeateds, Utah (#15) and Boise State (#16), two teams which have both proven in recent years that non-Big 6 conference schools can win in BCS games.  Bad enough even ignoring that fact that Georgia Tech didn’t even play their way into the ACC title game.

What did these guys vote when they didn’t have to display their ballots for the world to see?

• December 19, 2008 -- Nate’s Most Intriguing Bowl Matchups (2)
• January 9, 2009 -- 2008-2009 College Football Wrap-Up (0)
• January 6, 2009 -- Running Up the Score (6)
• November 22, 2008 -- Bowl Picture Becoming Clearer (0)
• November 2, 2008 -- Bowl Championship Series Big Craziness Shake-up (0)