Via the Austin American-Statesman: Harris poll suffers embarrassing Rash
The newest component in the Bowl Championship Series rankings had to deal with a Rash on Wednesday.That would be Jason Rash. He’s the president of a masonry company in Atlanta who for about 48 hours was one of the 114 voters in the Harris Interactive Poll that will count a third of the 2024 BCS formula.
Rash’s qualifications? He’s the son-in-law of Troy football Coach Larry Blakeney, who nominated him for the poll.
“I might be wrong to do what I did,” Blakeney told CBS SportsLine.com. “(But) I did it because I knew he’d be credible and accountable.”
Although it had nothing to do with Harris’ random selection of voters nominated by the 11 conferences and Notre Dame, the BCS’s credibility took a hit Wednesday when Rash was one of four voters who will not serve.
Rash quit. “Obviously, it was causing more of a stir than it was worth,” he told SportsLine.com. Also, ESPN informed both the BCS and Harris that former coaches Lou Holtz and Gerry DiNardo will be prohibited from voting, as will former Pittsburgh quarterback John Congemi, because they all do college football announcing for the cable network, which prohibits its on-air personalities from voting in the BCS-affiliated polls.
Well, this detracts a bit from all the positive press that Troy has been getting because of Demarcus Ware’s performance on Monday…
I don’t know what the rules were, but one has to wonder what Blakeney was thinking in nominating his son-n-law. Although I will admit, the odds are good that a run-of-the-mill college football fan will probably watch more football than the other members of the poll (former players and coaches like Terry Bradshaw). Indeed, Mr. Rash will almost certainly see more football than will the coaches who vote in the USAT/ESPN Coaches Poll.
Indeed, based on what I heard about this poll earlier in the week on the Dan Patrick show, I have to say that I am not all that impressed.
The Harris Poll was also criticized for gender equity reasons:
The Harris Poll also came under fire Wednesday from women sportswriters since none were picked for any of the 23 media slots among the 114-member electorate. By comparison, the Associated Press has three women among the 67 voters in its football poll. The AP told the BCS after last season that it would no longer be part of its ranking formula.
