Sixty-one AP college football pollsters rate 11-0 Florida State No. 1. No surprise there after the Seminoles knocked off the previous No. 1, Florida.
Five other voters give the No. 1 nod to the Arizona State Sun Devils, the nation’s only other 11-0 team. No arguments there.
But one member of the 67-voter AP board, sportscaster Bob Barry Sr. of KFOR-TV in Norman, Okla., deems neither the Seminoles nor the Sun Devils worthy of such a lofty perch.
His No. 1 pick: 10-1 Nebraska, which lost 19-0 to Arizona State on Sept. 19.
So much for taking head-to-head results into consideration.
“I just think that if the two teams played 10 times, Nebraska would win seven or eight of them,” Barry said. “I’m not a crank. It’s my honest opinion you’re getting.”
Barry said he didn’t expect to come in for the kind of criticism leveled at the coaches when, for a month after the Sun Devils’ rout of Nebraska, they ranked the Cornhuskers ahead of ASU in the USA Today/CNN poll.
In an unscientific press box survey after the Florida State-Florida game, several AP voters indicated that they would rank ASU No. 1 if the Sun Devils win the Rose Bowl and Florida State loses to Nebraska in the Sugar Bowl.
“That’s what’s known as a no-brainer,” one voter said.
Barry doesn’t see it that way.
“I just have a terribly hard time believing that Arizona State is a better team than Nebraska,” he said.
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Because he lives so near to Nebraska, some might accuse Barry of regional bias. But he’s quick to point out that he’s the football and basketball radio voice of the Oklahoma Sooners, Nebraska’s ancient gridiron rival.
Remember when: The AP’s preseason Top Ten turned out to be about as accurate as a Chicago weather report. Voters were close to the mark in the Top 5 but had slightly inflated expectations for Notre Dame, USC and Texas. And where was Arizona State?
It underscores the difficulty of ranking teams that have yet to play a down. The obvious solution is to wait a month or so before the first poll, but the words “obvious” and “poll” rarely meet in the same sentence.
Here’s how the AP’s preseason Top Ten fared and where they wound up ranked after the regular season:
1. Nebraska (10-1, ranked 3rd).
2. Tennessee (9-2, ranked 9th).
3. Florida State (11-0, ranked 1st).
4. Florida (10-1, ranked 4th).
5. Colorado (9-2, ranked 7th).
6. Notre Dame (8-3, ranked 18th).
7. Southern Cal (6-6, unranked).
8. Texas (7-4, unranked).
9. Ohio State (10-1, ranked fifth).
10. Syracuse (8-3, ranked 22nd).
Historical perspective: In 1969, when Notre Dame broke its 45-year policy against playing bowl games, then-head coach Ara Parseghian decided to make sure his players supported the move. He knew that some had lined up holiday employment–that was legal back then–and that many wanted to go home to see their families. He polled his players and 90 percent voted to accept an invitation to play No. 1 Texas in the Cotton Bowl.
Wonder if Notre Dame officials thought about polling this year’s roster before deciding not to go bowling?
No overtime, please: Here’s one scheduling conflict the bowl alliance could not have foreseen.
If Penn State receives an at-large alliance bid to the Fiesta Bowl, it may make for an interesting New Year’s for Nittany Lions sports information director Jeff Nelson.
His wife, Julia, is expecting the couple’s first child. Due date: Jan. 2 in State College, Pa. The Fiesta is the night before in Tempe, Ariz.
Nelson plans to fly home with the team after the game–unless events in Pennsylvania dictate otherwise.
“I’ve got all the airline schedules in front of me,” Nelson said. “Fingers crossed.”