Cal coach wants coaches poll voters' choices to be made public
 

December 7th - 4:39 am ET

New contract in hand, Tedford calls for accountability in coaches' poll
GREG BEACHAM
AP Sports Writer
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Cal football coach Jeff Tedford, speaking at a news conference on Monday, Dec. 6, 2004, in Berkeley, Calif., to discusses details of a five-year agreement he reached with UC Berkeley. The contract keeps Tedford coaching the Cal Bears through the 2009 football season. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

BERKELEY, Calif. — Jeff Tedford plans to keep California in contention for a Rose Bowl berth during each season of his new five-year contract.

He also wants to know which of his fellow coaches helped prevent the Golden Bears from getting to Pasadena this season.

After signing a lucrative new deal Monday that could keep him at Cal through 2009, Tedford called for voters in the coaches poll to make their choices public.

The Bears finished fourth in the poll, but six coaches inexplicably dropped them below No. 6 on the final ballots — one of several factors that kept Cal just short of a Bowl Championship Series berth.

"It's something we need to know," said Tedford, one of the poll's 61 voters. "One of the worst things that could happen is the votes being kept secret. If we had it to do all over again, I would hope that we'd make them public."

Though Cal's players and fans were abuzz over Tedford's new commitment to the school following the Bears' best regular season in a half century, nobody could fathom why six coaches picked the Bears seventh or lower in the final poll — four at No. 7 and two in the eighth slot.

In the previous week's poll, nobody picked Cal lower than sixth. The latest vote came after Cal's 26-16 win at Southern Mississippi on Saturday night — a close game, but a tough road contest that wasn't in doubt in the final minutes.

Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen also wants to put names to the votes that hurt Cal's BCS standing.

"Those votes should be called out," Hansen said. "We ought to know who did that, because that's wrong."

After leading Texas for several weeks, Cal (10-1) slipped behind the Longhorns into fifth place in the final BCS standings Sunday, in part because the Bears lost ground in both The Associated Press and coaches polls recently.

The BCS drop caused Cal to miss out on the school's first Rose Bowl in 45 years. The Golden Bears got a meeting with Texas Tech in the Holiday Bowl instead.

In the AP poll, Cal finished 62 points ahead of Texas in fourth place. In the coaches poll, the Bears were just five points ahead of Texas, which will play Michigan in the Rose Bowl.

The Associated Press made public its poll Sunday, listing each voter's name, news organization and votes for Nos. 1-25. None of the AP media voters had Cal ranked lower than sixth.

But the American Football Coaches Association conducts the balloting for the ESPN/USA Today coaches poll, and the coaches voted twice this year to keep their ballots secret.

"I certainly have a question of some of them," Hansen said of the coaches' votes. "Something pretty unusual happened between last week and this week. I'd like to have the Cal football team be able to know which coaches thought they weren't in the top six teams."

AFCA president Grant Teaff said the ballots from the final coaches poll will not be released. He said he didn't believe there was anything suspicious about the final voting.

"We do very good due diligence to run a credible poll," he said. "I understand their obvious concerns. I'm not oblivious to that."

Teaff said making the ballots open will be discussed again in January.

The controversy didn't detract from Tedford's excitement over a new contract that should end speculation on his future at Cal. With other schools already inquiring about Tedford's availability for the third straight year, the coach and athletic director Sandy Barbour got something done quickly.

"I didn't want to entertain anything else," Tedford said. "I hope everybody knows by now that I am 100 percent committed to this program in the future."

And Cal is committed to Tedford, who will make $1.5 million per year plus as much as $300,000 in incentives, along with a $2.5 million retention bonus at the end of the contract. The bonus boosts his annual salary to $2 million — exactly the amount that will be made by new Florida coach Urban Meyer.

It's an impressive financial investment for Cal, an academic power where athletics have always been viewed skeptically by certain faculty and students. It's also a significant coup for Barbour, who raised all the money to keep her football coach entirely from private donors in just 2 1/2 months on the job.

"There was a call to action that we put out there, and I can't say enough about how people responded," Barbour said. "I've said for months that I believed Jeff wanted to be here, and now he has proven it."

———

AP Sports Writer Janie McCauley contributed to this report.
Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Cal was shafted...but whining about it won't help.

I don't know if I think that's a good idea. Perhaps Cal was screwed. Or perhaps everyone thought that Cal should've whooped Southern Miss. Then again, Texas should've whooped Kansas in their eyes, too. I just don't know if making the votes public would make much difference. This ought to be good.

Cal got fucked. Maybe whining won't help, but sitting back and saying nothing is a good way to insure this joke of a system remains intact.

Cal went out and won their game, including taking a knee to end it instead of running up the score. Meanwhile, Texas sat on their asses and did nothing. How can you determine that one team got better when that team didn't even play a game?

If you want to talk about margin of victory, take a look at Texas against Kansas and Arkansas.

The Big 12 conference receives an additional 4.5 million by Texas getting in...wonder what coaches changed their mind?

The Auburn thing pales in comparison. Most people would agree that the two best teams are playing for the title.

Win your weak assed conference.

You're fortunate you didn't tumble all the way to the fucking Alamo Bowl after losing your CCG in double OT and still being in the top 6 of the computerized rankings. (ala KSU 98.)

WTF are you talking about?

Cal's only loss came to the best team in the country, and it was only by 6 points. Since they are in the same division as USC, they didn't play in the CCG. UCLA won their division (at 4-4) and faced USC in the CCG.

Cal is top five in both scoring O and scoring D in the entire NCAA. If you're busting on them as not deserving, you don't know shit about college football.

UT pulled some strings.

one who sucks the peniss. Mangino nailed it after the <i>stolen</i> victory the longhorns had over Kansas... it's all about dollar signs. :grr:

Exactly. In the coaches poll, there's enough money involved to make people vote with their wallets instead of their heads. In the AP, there's probably just a bunch of Texas writers that want the easy assignment of covering one of their home teams in a BCS bowl.

Then win the conference. It's all moot if Cal wins. They can blame it on money, computer polls etc.

Win it outright and they're in. They have no gripe.

Nice argument. Win your conference and you're in. Like Texas?

See this where your a being an idiot. What do you tink the PAC 10 coaches were doing this weak? Do you think they weren't polling down the Big 12 teams?

If so, then you don't know shit about college football....

I'd love to see coaches get caught voting Cal out.

They weren't changing their votes. The majority of changed votes came from the state of Texas.

If they're going to use blatant homerism to vote, at least do it all year long.

If you think this system is working, you have family on the BCS commitee.

I listened to the same crybaby shiot from UTerus last season. They got beat out of the BCS because KSU waxed OU and won the title.

TFB. Beat SC and they are in.

Next year, they'll be the sentimental favorite for the at large, just like Texas was this year. God knows they cried for 8 months after the decisions came down last season.

OK, I just re-read the article and one thing did jump out at me.

The President of the American Football Coaches Association is Grant Teaff. Grant Teaff was the long time coach for Baylor. In the old Southwest Conference.

Jsp, I take it back. I'll bet there was plenty of Texas back room buggering going on.