AP Poll
The
Associated Press (AP) Poll typically refers to a weekly ranking of the top 25
NCAA Division I-A college football and
Division I college basketball teams, though other AP polls exist as well. The rankings are compiled by polling sportswriters across the nation. Each voter provides his own ranking of the top 25 teams, and the individual rankings are then combined to produce the national ranking by giving a team 25 points for a first place vote, 24 for a second place vote, and so on down to 1 point for a twenty-fifth place vote. Ballots of the voting members in the AP Poll are made public.
The AP college football poll has a long history. Due to the long-standing historical ties between individual college football conferences and high-paying
bowl games like the
Rose Bowl and
Orange Bowl, the NCAA has never held a tournament or championship game to determine the
champion of what is now the highest division, NCAA Division I-A (the lower divisions do hold championship tournaments). As a result, the news media began running their own polls of sports writers to determine who was, by popular opinion, the best football team in the country at the end of the season. One of the earliest such polls was the AP College Football Poll, first run in
1934 and then continuously from
1936. The public and the media began to take the leading vote-getter in the final AP Poll as the national champion for that season.
The AP Poll is not the only college football poll. The other major poll is the
Coaches Poll, which has been sponsored by several organizations: the
United Press (1950-1957), the
United Press International (1958-1990),
USA Today (1991-present),
CNN (1991-1996), and
ESPN (1997-2005). Having two major polls has led to numerous "split" national titles, where the two polls disagreed on the #1 team. In
1997, the
Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was developed to try to unify the poll results by picking two teams for a "real" national championship game. For the first several years the AP Poll factored in the determination of the BCS rankings, along with other factors including the Coaches Poll and computer-based polls. Because of a series of controversies surrounding the BCS, the AP demanded in December, 2004, that its poll no longer be used in the BCS rankings, and so the 2004-2005 season was the last season that the AP Poll was used for this purpose.
AP Poll inclusion in the BCS
Starting with the
1998 season, the AP Poll factored in the determination of the BCS rankings, along with other factors including the Coaches Poll and computer-based polls. The BCS system did not get permission from the Associated Press, but the AP did not initially voice serious concern. However two major problems in the 2003 and 2004 seasons resulted in the AP asking to be removed after the 2004 season
[AP Removes Its Poll From BCS, ncaasports.com, Dec. 22, 2004, Accessed June 6, 2006.].
In the 2003 season the BCS system broke down when the next-to-final BCS poll ranked the
University of Southern California (USC) at #3 while the two human polls in the system had ranked USC at #1. As a result, USC did not play in the BCS' designated national championship game. After defeating another highly ranked team in its final game, the AP Poll kept USC at #1 while the Coaches Poll was contractually obligated to select the winner of the BCS game,
Louisiana State University (LSU), as the #1 team. The resulting split national title was the very problem that the BCS was created to solve, and has been widely considered an embarrassment
[Tim Layden, Embarrassing moments in College Football (#10), SportsIllustrated.com, Aug. 2, 2006 , Accessed Aug. 2, 2006.].
In 2004, a new controversy erupted at the end of the season when,
Auburn University, who finished the regular season 12-0 afetr winning the
Southeastern Conference Championship game, was left out of the BCS title game in favor of Oklahoma who had been blown out by
Kansas State University in the
Big 12 title game 35-7. USC went on to blow out Oklahoma in the
Sugar Bowl and Auburn won their bowl game, leaving two undefeated teams at the end of the season. Also, in that same year,
Texas made up late ground on
California (Cal) in the BCS standings and as a result grabbed a high-payout, at-large spot in the Rose Bowl. Previous to that poll, Cal had been ranked ahead of Texas in both human polls and the BCS poll. Both teams won their game that week, but the Texas Coach,
Mack Brown, had made a public effort to lobby for his team to be moved higher in the ranking. When the human polls were released, Texas remained behind Cal, but it had closed the gap enough so that the BCS Poll (which determines placement) placed Texas above Cal, angering both Cal and it's conferemce, the
Pac-10. The AP Poll voters were caught in the middle because their vote changes were automatically made public, while the votes of the Coaches poll were kept confidential. Although there had been a more substantial shift in the votes of the Coaches Poll, the only clear targets for the ire of fanatical fans were the voters in the AP Poll. While officials from both Cal and the Pac-10 called for the coaches' votes to be made public, the overtures were turned down and did little to solve the problem of AP voters.
Many members of the press who voted in the AP Poll were upset by the fiasco and, at the behest of its members, the AP asked that its poll no longer be used in the BCS rankings. The 2004 season was the last season that the AP Poll was used in the BCS rankings, it was replaced in the BCS equation by the newly created
Harris Interactive College Football Poll[BCS Replaces AP Poll, ncaasports.com, July 12, 2005, Accessed June 6, 2006.].
The AP began compiling a ranking of the top 20 college men's basketball teams during the 1948-1949 season. It has issued this poll continuously since the 1950-1951 season.
In Division I men's and women's college basketball, the AP Poll is largely just a tool to compare schools throughout the season and spark debate, as it has no bearing on postseason play. Generally, all top 25 teams in the poll are invited to the men's and women's NCAA basketball torunament, colloquially known as
March Madness.
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The Associated Press Top 25 College Football Poll at
Sports Illustrated*
The Associated Press Top 25 Men's College Basketball Poll at
Sports Illustrated*
List of all Final AP Poll results and champions
*
Weekly AP football polls from 1936-present
