Your Take: The Story Behind the Poll

Last year, FBS coaches were “polled” about the controversial Bowl Championship Series and in the process got used as propaganda. As everyone knows, opinion polls are a complex business. The people that run them best are experienced, highly-trained and well-paid professionals. It’s for good reason. You can garner almost any answer you want from a poll depending how the question is asked. Politicians, business and others will pay top dollar to either get manipulated or honest results. A smart pollster can deliver either at will. In this specific case, the question assured the result. The “poll” asked whether coaches “prefer the traditional bowl system over a playoff.” Not surprisingly, a whopping 93 percent of coaches chose the bowls. Having spoken to many FBS coaches through the years as a columnist at Yahoo! Sports, I know the 93 percent number