The Bowl Championship Series has turned to the company that created The Harris Poll to help determine the feasibility of a new football poll for its championship game formula.
The BCS, left scrambling after The Associated Press poll pulled out last season, needs a new poll by mid-July. The new poll would replace AP and join the coaches poll and six computer rankings to determine the top two teams for next season’s championship game.
The BCS has asked each of the 11 Division I-A conferences and Notre Dame to submit 27 names of potential poll voters. Potential voters are a group of former coaches, players, administrators and media.
Harris Interactive, which created The Harris Poll, will analyze the list and determine if a new poll would be valid for use in the BCS formula. The BCS hopes to get an answer from Harris by late next week.
“We are confident in the credibility of the Harris name, and their ability to construct a poll based on statistically valid sampling principles and to manage it throughout the season,” BCS director Kevin Weiberg said in a statement.
If Harris determines a poll is not feasible, one option for the BCS is the National Football Foundation, which formed a poll in the mid-1990s before the BCS was created in 1998.
Despite the emergence of the BCS, controversies over the top two teams have arisen in four of the past five years. Last season, Southern California and Oklahoma played for the national title, while Auburn went unbeaten at 12-0 but had no shot at the championship.
