In the eight college football seasons from 2006-13, I served on the Harris Poll voting board, which along with the USA Today coaches poll and several computer rankings determined the two teams that annually played in the Bowl Championship Series title contest.
That formula went away in 2014, when the sport’s higher-ups decided that a four-team playoff should be mapped by 13 committee members who could sit behind closed doors while scarfing down Cheetos and guzzling Yoo-hoos without ever having to reveal how they voted. It was a sad time when transparency was removed, but that’s a topic for another day.
Most of my time as a Harris Poll voter was quite simple. I would start by typing “Alabama” and would go from there.
Now I’m a voter with the Associated Press poll, which has been around since 1936 and still crowns the national champion despite not factoring into what is now a 12-team playoff, and I am wrestling with whether to rank the Crimson Tide at all.
Alabama has been ranked in the AP poll for 279 consecutive weeks, a streak that began with the first poll of the 2008 season. Nick Saban’s 2007 debut in Tuscaloosa had resulted in a 7-6 season capped by a win over Colorado in the Independence Bowl, but enhanced optimism came about in the winter of 2008 when his first full recruiting class contained running back Mark Ingram, receiver Julio Jones and defensive lineman Marcell Darius.