Published Monday, August 03, 2009

Biased coaches

So Steve Spurrier didn't pay attention to a simple form which stimulated a curious flap at the SEC media days in Birmingham. What's the big deal? Who cares about pre-season picks?

In case you missed out on the story, the SEC coaches were asked to vote for a pre-season all conference team, and it became a stirring headline when one coach failed to vote for Florida's Tim Tebow, a Heisman winner, as the league's top quarterback. We later learned it was Spurrier, a former Gator quarterback and coach, who didn't make it unanimous. I have never felt that coaches were good "pickers." With expansive media scrutiny, they have to rank and pick with considerable fallout if they make a misstep.

Sunshine laws probably serve the best interest of taxpayers, but who cares what a coach thinks about which quarterback ought to be on the pre-season all-conference team? What if the quarterback breaks a leg or pulls a hamstring and his performance is less than sparkling when late season rolls around? November is when you rate performance.

The coaches should be the best at evaluating and ranking talent and teams, but because of the way things are done, they sometimes turn out to be the worst.

Coaches have to identify with certain circumstances that reflect their best interests. Late in the season when rankings begin to mean something, you can't hurt your team's chances for a BCS bowl by ranking some other team ahead of you own. Even if the consensus is that the other team is better. When coaches did not have to disclose their vote, the personal politics didn't matter. With public knowledge of how you vote, a coach has to avoid insulting an opponent, especially if he is dealing with a team in his own division.

Mark Richt, for example, can't afford to rank Florida anywhere but at the top. If the Gators stumble as the season goes along, then he can take that into consideration. Further, it is easier for him to downgrade Florida after he has played them than it would be before the annual game in Jacksonville.

Now that we know Spurrier is the one coach who didn't make it unanimous that Tebow is ranked the top quarterback in the league, already there is speculation that Florida will be more revved up to dispose of the Gamecocks Nov. 14 in Columbia. Knowing Spurrier, I bet he won't think that gives Florida an advantage in the game.

One thing is for certain. The week of the game he will hear about his summer decision until he will likely be forced to say, "No more questions about Tebow." The media will beat a dead horse to death.

Coaches are perhaps more guilty of more prejudice than anybody. In 1990, there was a split vote on the national champion. Colorado, which beat Notre Dame 10-9 in a thrilling game in the Orange bowl, was voted No. 1 by the Associated Press.

The United Press International poll, whose voters were a panel of college head coaches, chose Georgia Tech. There was an interesting development in that vote. Bobby Ross, at Tech, was highly regarded in the coaching profession, but I can name you a number of coaches who did not like Bill McCartney of Colorado, a man who wore his religion on his sleeve.

Several coaches voted against McCartney and Colorado because they thought McCartney to be a hypocrite. I say, let the coaches coach and somebody else do the picking and ranking.