Harris Poll a mixed up mess

Pat Quinn doesn’t know why he was asked to vote in the Harris Poll that helps college football stage its national championship.

But here’s a good guess. Harris Interactive had to find 114 voters. Someone has to do it.

The 80-year-old Quinn is 22 years retired from the OSU sports information department. He’s dabbled in reporting for the Stillwater News-Press ever since.

That, of course, makes him no more qualified to stick his big toe in the BCS than it does to run the Treasury Department. But he’s got plenty of company.

When The Associated Press declared in 2005 that it wanted out of the BCS process, college football powerbrokers asked Harris to assemble an electorate of 114.

Big mistake. The last thing this sport needed was another huge panel of people who might or might not pay attention to what they’re doing.

College football already has such a beast. The coaches’ poll.

If the BCS needed a counter to the coaches, it should have looked to basketball and formed a small committee. Seven or nine members. Something like that.

The smaller the voting pool, the better the results. Let the masses vote, and you end up with Herbert Hoover as president and "The English Patient” as best picture.

Instead, we’ve got virtual drive-through voting. Harris promised a statistically valid representation of all major conferences and schools.

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