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Legends Poll
The Legends Poll was a poll that rated the Top 25 teams weekly during the college football season. Its aim was to identify the two best teams in its opinion by the end of the season who should compete in a national championship game. The voters were a group of retired coaches, most of whom were in the College Football Hall of Fame. The Legends Poll was founded by Andy Curtin in 2005 as the Master Coaches Survey, but changed its name in 2008 to better reflect the make-up of its voting members. Curtin and his partner, Pete Wolek implemented the original plan and operated the Legends Poll since its inception. The Legends Poll was published by ESPN and the Sporting News.
In July 2005, Curtin, Wolek and three partners invited a selection of retired college football coaches to a three-day conference in Thomasville, Georgia to introduce the concept of the Legends Poll. The original 16 members were John Cooper, Vince Dooley, Pat Dye, LaVell Edwards, Hayden Fry, Don James, Frank Kush, Dick MacPherson, Bill Mallory, Don Nehlen, John Ralston, John Robinson, Bo Schembechler, R. C. Slocum, Gene Stallings and George Welsh.
This polling system was created to address the issues found in the three dominant polls of the time: AP Poll, Coaches Poll, Bowl Championship Series (BCS)
The AP poll was made up of 65 sports journalists. The two major criticisms this poll has faced are that these journalists don't have the football knowledge of head coaches and that they suffer from regional bias. Legends Poll coaches had, on average, over 23 years of head coaching experience. These coaches were also able to watch full games out of their time zone before voting.
The Coaches poll consisted of current head coaches from the 116 programs across the country. These voters had the expertise to judge the Top 25 teams but lacked the time necessary to evaluate them. During the season, coaches are busy with their own teams, watching film of their upcoming opponent. Legends Poll coaches were retired and watched multiple games on Saturdays, as well as being provided with game film from other action across the country.
The BCS rankings combined the AP poll, Coaches poll and numerous computer rankings. The Bowl Championship Series controversies mounted over the years, with many published rankings going against common expectation by the sporting community. Legends Poll voters would discuss the recent games on an hour-long conference call each week to smooth over outliers of player injuries, garbage time points, and to explain their reasoning for that week's eye test (a term for subjective rating based on the person's background knowledge).
The final AP and Coaches polls also were heavily influenced by preseason rankings. Teams ranked highly before the season would stay ahead of lower-ranked teams if both kept winning. One such incident in 2004 directly led to the formation of the Legends Poll. Undefeated Auburn had five wins over top 10 teams, but only finished #3 in the BCS because of their low starting position in the preseason. The Legends Poll would not have a pre-season poll. The first poll wouldn't take place until after the voters had seen three weeks’ worth of games.
Coaches assigned to specific teams to focus on. wide geographic diversity. 15 coaches helps to smooth out any potential bias. Games were recorded. DVDs sent to coaches. Reviewing at least 15 games a week via film study. The weekly conference call allowed the coaches to point out to each other the strengths and weaknesses of the various teams. During the conference call each coach would present his synopsis on his assigned teams, and the other coaches would comment on or question what had been presented. This system thus allowed all of its voters the shared expertise of the entire group. As the season progressed and more teams dropped from contention for the top spots in the poll, coaches who lost teams from that process would be assigned new teams to follow, which allowed the Legends Poll to have multiple experts looking at the top teams as the season wound down. Independent voting by the coaches. Would send in their top 25 and all votes would be averaged out to form the weekly Legends Poll. The ultimate goal of the Legends Poll was not to get the 25 teams in exactly correct numerical order each week, but to produce the correct two teams listed as #1 & #2 at the conclusion of the season, after watching the entire body of work of all the contending teams throughout that season.
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Legends Poll AI simulator
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Legends Poll
The Legends Poll was a poll that rated the Top 25 teams weekly during the college football season. Its aim was to identify the two best teams in its opinion by the end of the season who should compete in a national championship game. The voters were a group of retired coaches, most of whom were in the College Football Hall of Fame. The Legends Poll was founded by Andy Curtin in 2005 as the Master Coaches Survey, but changed its name in 2008 to better reflect the make-up of its voting members. Curtin and his partner, Pete Wolek implemented the original plan and operated the Legends Poll since its inception. The Legends Poll was published by ESPN and the Sporting News.
In July 2005, Curtin, Wolek and three partners invited a selection of retired college football coaches to a three-day conference in Thomasville, Georgia to introduce the concept of the Legends Poll. The original 16 members were John Cooper, Vince Dooley, Pat Dye, LaVell Edwards, Hayden Fry, Don James, Frank Kush, Dick MacPherson, Bill Mallory, Don Nehlen, John Ralston, John Robinson, Bo Schembechler, R. C. Slocum, Gene Stallings and George Welsh.
This polling system was created to address the issues found in the three dominant polls of the time: AP Poll, Coaches Poll, Bowl Championship Series (BCS)
The AP poll was made up of 65 sports journalists. The two major criticisms this poll has faced are that these journalists don't have the football knowledge of head coaches and that they suffer from regional bias. Legends Poll coaches had, on average, over 23 years of head coaching experience. These coaches were also able to watch full games out of their time zone before voting.
The Coaches poll consisted of current head coaches from the 116 programs across the country. These voters had the expertise to judge the Top 25 teams but lacked the time necessary to evaluate them. During the season, coaches are busy with their own teams, watching film of their upcoming opponent. Legends Poll coaches were retired and watched multiple games on Saturdays, as well as being provided with game film from other action across the country.
The BCS rankings combined the AP poll, Coaches poll and numerous computer rankings. The Bowl Championship Series controversies mounted over the years, with many published rankings going against common expectation by the sporting community. Legends Poll voters would discuss the recent games on an hour-long conference call each week to smooth over outliers of player injuries, garbage time points, and to explain their reasoning for that week's eye test (a term for subjective rating based on the person's background knowledge).
The final AP and Coaches polls also were heavily influenced by preseason rankings. Teams ranked highly before the season would stay ahead of lower-ranked teams if both kept winning. One such incident in 2004 directly led to the formation of the Legends Poll. Undefeated Auburn had five wins over top 10 teams, but only finished #3 in the BCS because of their low starting position in the preseason. The Legends Poll would not have a pre-season poll. The first poll wouldn't take place until after the voters had seen three weeks’ worth of games.
Coaches assigned to specific teams to focus on. wide geographic diversity. 15 coaches helps to smooth out any potential bias. Games were recorded. DVDs sent to coaches. Reviewing at least 15 games a week via film study. The weekly conference call allowed the coaches to point out to each other the strengths and weaknesses of the various teams. During the conference call each coach would present his synopsis on his assigned teams, and the other coaches would comment on or question what had been presented. This system thus allowed all of its voters the shared expertise of the entire group. As the season progressed and more teams dropped from contention for the top spots in the poll, coaches who lost teams from that process would be assigned new teams to follow, which allowed the Legends Poll to have multiple experts looking at the top teams as the season wound down. Independent voting by the coaches. Would send in their top 25 and all votes would be averaged out to form the weekly Legends Poll. The ultimate goal of the Legends Poll was not to get the 25 teams in exactly correct numerical order each week, but to produce the correct two teams listed as #1 & #2 at the conclusion of the season, after watching the entire body of work of all the contending teams throughout that season.