An online process for voting might make tabulation of the votes quicker and more accurate (and who knows, maybe it will eliminate cases where someone votes for Georgia twice meaning to put Georgia Tech as the second), but the votes themselves will be as inaccurate as ever.

Preseason polls were started as a way to sell newspapers. That seems largely irrelevant now, but "tradition" will dictate that they stay around for a little while longer, I guess.

Eliminating the preseason poll reaps two benefits. First, it puts every team on a (seemingly) equal footing for the first few weeks. But also, it would force teams to stop lining up creampuffs in the early weeks of the season in order to pad schedules. Instead you'd start seeing more interconference games between heavyweights in hopes of making a strong enough impression on the voters.

The Non-BCS schools like BYU, Ball State, Utah, or Boise seem to always start out in the pre-season polls at 15 and above. It's when schools like Missouri, Clemson, LSU or Georgia are in the Top Ten and don't belong and it takes the whole season to weed out these pretenders with their 3 and 4 losses that cause the Non-BCS schools to suffer. When the coaches cling to the voting paradigm that these are perennial top ten programs is when the accuracy of the rankings is called into question.

until there's a playoff it's all crap!

until there's a playoff it's all crap #2!

#6 says it all- the biggest violaters are the sec teams

1. the value of preseason polls is zero.
2. the value of any poll which does not offer complete transparency to the public and the ability to strike the votes of any pollster who has not watched the game films, not the tv feed, of every team being ranked and backed up his/her ranking with real empirical data is also zero.
3. there is really a lot to be said about doing all of the rankings with computer software systems with the factors to be taken into account and the data inputted approved by the public who pay out the billions for college sports.
4. and then there is the issue of the crooked refs and those who protect tham at the conference and ncaa levels.
5. the ncaa currently has a cover organization called college football officiating llc. anyone can find this outfit on the web by simply inputting the name.
6. the "guardians" of officiating integrity are listed on that website and are exactly those individuals who stand to gain the most by providing cover for the crooked refs who determine the outcome of games for the benefit of these guardians.
7. the person put in day to day charge of this coverup organization is one david parry, who provided cover for crooked big 10 refs such as the infamous dennis lipski for many years. dave parry is a protege of delany, the big 10 commissioner.
8. the standard responses of david parry and his associates at the ncaa and conference levels to any coach who provides clear film evidence of dishonest penalty calls and non calls by college football refs which reverse the outcome of games are screw you and if you say anything to the press, we will hit you with big monetary fines under the ncaa and conference so-called " sportsmanship conduct" rules.
9. it is for these reasons that oklahoma will not play any pac 10 team if a pac 10 crew is officiating. oklahoma had a clear over oregon win stolen from them by an all pac 10 ref and tech review crew.
10. the head pac 10 ref at that game, dave cutaia, was promoted to the position of the pac 10 official in charge of hiring, training, and disciplining pac 10 refs and tech reviewers.
11. and this promotion occurred after the pac 10 conference had admitted the egregious penalty calls and non calls had altered the outcome of that game and promised to punish the guilty parties.
12. are the other conferences any better? not really.
13. who gets conned into paying all of these people to run these scams based on fraudult misrepresentations?
14. we the public do.
15. these people who run the ncaa and the conferences just love to have people blame the bcs system for everything that is wrong with college football since that debate takes the attention of the public away from their much more serious and much more profitable scams.
16. fortunately, we have been collecting evidence since 2005 and a lot of that evidence comes from honest refs and tech reviewers from every single conference who quit because their ethics and morals did not permit them to join in on the civil racketeering operations.
17.any who spoke out publicly about the corruption before they quit were summarily fired by the conferences which employed them.
18.the current state of college football, basketball, and other sports is very similar to that at enron and mci worldcom before we exposed them and took them down.
19 the people at enron and mci worldcom also thought that they were untouchable. they turned out to be very wrong. in addition, the feds followed the civil rico actions with criminal racketeerring prosecutions in those cases.
20. are human refs and tech reviewers really needed for college football and basketball and other sports? no, everything that they do can be done fairly by high tech devices, such as those used at the swimming races in the olympics. tech review is not necessary. it can be done by high tech devices which are properly programmed and set.
21. very few of these conference and ncaa officials are needed either. the public does not like paying people to cheat them.

Preseason polls should be done with, cuz at tha end of the season none of the teams will be at the same spot anyway..just ask georgia from there flop of a season last year after starting #1 in the preseason polls. #1 texas longhorns

Well, I have a simple solution to rid the polls of blatant and obvious bias. Simple rank Penn St. #1 every year in the pre-season polls. If they lose a game move them down a notch or two (no more than 2 for any lose). With this fair and totally unbias ranking system, an undefeated Penn St would rightfully be ranked #1 and a two lose Penn St team would be fairly ranked at #3, #4 or #5. That's fair and I'm sure everyone will agree.

I have no problem with doing away with the pre-season coaches poll. However, someone else will still conduct one. And the media will publish it and report on it. And the end result will be the same.

Gee Robert...Bitter Much?