Coaches' Poll

The USA Today Coaches' Poll is the current name for a weekly ranking of the top 25 NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) college football and Division I college basketball teams.

The football rankings are compiled by the USA Today Board of Coaches which is made up of 59 head coaches at Division I FBS institutions. All coaches are members of the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA). The basketball rankings are compiled by the USA Today Board of Coaches which is made up of 31 head coaches at Division I institutions. All are members of the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC).

The football Coaches' Poll is an element of the BCS rankings, a voting system used to determine who will play in the BCS National Championship Game and be crowned the NCAA Division I FBS national champion.

History
The Coaches' Poll began selecting the top 15 teams on a weekly basis during the 1950-1951 college football and basketball seasons. It was initially published by United Press (after 1958, United Press International). For the 1990-1991 football and basketball seasons, the poll expanded to a top 25, and it has retained this format since.

College football
Through the 1973 college football season, the final coaches poll was released in early December, after the regular season, but before the bowl games. Beginning with the 1974 season, the poll of coaches conducted its final poll after the bowl games. In 1991, USA Today and CNN took over publishing the coaches' football poll. In 1997, ESPN took the place of CNN as co-sponsor. Finally, following the 2005 season, as a result of controversial voting practices related to the BCS, ESPN dropped its co-sponsorship of the football poll, leaving USA Today as the sole sponsor.

Although the coaches' football poll is often generally in accord with the AP Poll there have been years where the polls disagree. Eleven times the Coaches Poll has crowned a different national champion than the AP Poll – in 1954, 1957, 1965, 1970, 1973, 1974, 1978, 1990, 1991, 1997, and 2003 – causing consternation among some college football fans. Until 1974 the final Coaches Poll was taken before the bowl games occurred. This was changed after the 1973 season, when Alabama was crowned as the Coaches Poll national champion in December, yet lost the Sugar Bowl to Notre Dame on New Year's Eve. The same situation occurred in 1970, when #5 Notre Dame beat #1 Texas 24-11 in the 1971 Cotton Bowl and Nebraska won the AP national title. The change to the post-bowl final poll was well-timed as the top-ranked team would lose its bowl game four more times in 1970s: in 1975, 1977, 1978, and 1979.

Also, since 1974, teams on probation are not recognized in the poll of coaches while the AP permits their inclusion.

The winner of the BCS National Championship Game is required to be voted number one, yet the AP Poll does not have this requirement. The winner of the Coaches' Poll is awarded the Waterford Crystal National Championship Coaches' Trophy in an on-field post-game presentation.

The coaches poll has come under criticism for being inaccurate, with some of the charges being that coaches are biased towards their own teams and conferences, that coaches don't actually complete their own ballots, and that coaches are unfamiliar with even the basics, such as whether a team is undefeated or not, about teams they are voting on.

Year-by-year final coaches' poll football champions
Source (accessed 2005-11-15)

†USC would later be stripped of their 2004 Coaches' Poll championship due to NCAA sanctions.