Time to put the AP poll to rest

College football has, since the mid 1930s, relied on polls to determine who would be crowned the national champion.  The biggest of those polls was the Associated Press poll, a popularity contest that was voted on by sports writers.  In 1997 college football went with the Bowl Championship Series, or BCS, as a way to try and make sure that the two top teams in the nation played each other for a definitive champion.  The AP poll was included in the BCS ranking system originally, but after the 2004 season the AP writers decided that they did not want to be part of the BCS.

In 2004 the #2 LSU Tigers beat the #1 Oklahoma Sooners to win the BCS national title.  The problem the AP pollsters had with that was that they had ranked USC as the number one team due to a late season loss by Oklahoma.  The BCS rankings did take the loss into account but because of Oklahoma’s strength of schedule and other ratings they were able to maintain their number one spot over other one loss teams such as USC and LSU.  The human polls are much less forgiving of a late season loss.  The AP poll put USC as the number one team in 2004, giving it the AP national title.

Since college football now goes by the BCS for its champion, and since the AP poll is no longer a part of the BCS, the AP seems a bit redundant.  People may not like the BCS system, but  it is the best option we have since there will likely never be a playoff system.  It is the agreed upon way in which we choose the national champion now, the AP poll is no longer a part of the system.

With the AP poll made completely obsolete, I find it strange that we still have it around.  Of course, the reason it is still around and the reason sports writers still talk about it as a measure of a team’s success is probably because the sports writers are the ones voting in it - and they want to feel important.