In a move that came as a surprise to college football fans everywhere, ESPN has parted ways with both USA Today and the college football coaches who vote in its weekly poll. The network and its media members will now take over sole voting duties.

Disney's ESPN is drawing comparisons to Disney's once popular DuckTales.

ESPN cited the fact that coaches admitted to not being able to watch all the games and the fact that USA Today is "not quite as big, powerful, or ridiculously rich" as them as the main reasons for the switch.

"We feel this move will benefit college football and its fans in ways we can't even imagine," said ESPN President George W. Bodenheimer at a press conference announcing the move.

When asked to elaborate on what those benefits might be, Bodenheimer said he "wouldn't get into them at this time," or something like that and then threatened to kick me out of the press conference while being flanked by security guards.

ESPN also announced a major change to the poll, which is one of the main factors in the Bowl Championship Series formula to determine the title game matchup.

The first change will give the winner of October's USC-Notre Dame clash an automatic invite to the BCS title game. The loser will also automatically receive a spot in a BCS bowl. The AP poll has yet to approve this new change, however.

"College football fans have always thought the championship selection process was a little too complicated and difficult to comprehend, so we went ahead and simplified it," said Bodenheimer about the rule change. "We believe that many fans will be satisfied with this new rule and the simplicity it brings to our sport."

Now that the coaches and USA Today are no longer involved, polling will be limited to ESPN personalities and media only. The first poll for the 2007 season has already been released, and USC and Notre Dame are number one and two, respectively, after garnering every single first-place vote between them but two. California is number three on the strength of a first-place vote by Lee Corso and Penn State is number four due to a first-place vote by Beano Cook.

Connecticut is number five, which is probably its highest ranking ever but I'm too lazy to look it up. Go ahead and Google it if you want.

As for reaction from the coaches left out in the cold by ESPN, their reaction was surprisingly positive on the matter.

"I really like what this does for college football and I think it will be beneficial to our sport in the long run," said USC coach Pete Carroll in a statement released by ESPN.

But Carroll wasn't the only coach on board with the change.

Table Scraps.... Doubtful

"I really like what this does for college football and I think it will be beneficial to our sport in the long run," said Notre Dame head coach Charlie Weis in another, separate prepared statement.

Other coaches from other schools couldn't be reached for comment despite a few attempts here and there.

Reaction to the news was overwhelmingly positive by the media as well, as I was the only non-ESPN media member to attend the press conference.

We will have more on this breaking news story when ESPN is generous enough to send me a few table scraps of information.

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (Registered users only)

I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.

Add Comment