2005 NCAA Division I-A football rankings

Three human polls and one formulaic ranking make up the 2005 NCAA Division I-A football rankings, in addition to various publications' preseason polls. Unlike most sports, college football's governing body, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), does not bestow a National Championship title for Division I-A football. That title is bestowed by different polling agencies. There are several polls that currently exist. The main weekly polls are the AP Poll and Coaches Poll. About halfway through the season, two additional polls are released; the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) Rankings and the Harris Interactive Poll.

During the 2005 season, 34 different teams appeared in the rankings by the major polls, but two teams, USC and Texas, held the top two spots throughout the course of the season.

BCS Rankings

The BCS rankings are a based on a formula composed of the Coaches Poll, the Harris Interactive Poll and six computer rankings. These rankings are usually released around the seventh week of the season. It is the results of this poll that decide which teams play in which bowl games as well as which two teams will play in the BCS National Championship Game. The BCS Rankings are generated by taking the points received in each poll individually, and dividing by the total points that a single team could earn if they were ranked #1 by every member. For example, the maximum total points in the Coaches Poll is 1550, and if a team earns 1387 points, their score in the BCS for the Coaches Poll would be .895. The BCS Rankings then does the same for the Harris Interactive Poll. Next, the highest and lowest rankings of the 6 computer rankings are dropped, the remaining 4 combined with the points (again awarded by position) and divided by 100. The three percentages are then averaged, and the highest average is then awarded 1st place in the BCS Rankings.

Harris Interactive Poll

The Harris Poll is the newest poll as it was created in 2005 to replace the AP Poll in the BCS formula. It consists of former players, coaches, administrators, and current and former media who submit votes for the top 25 teams each week. The panel has been designed to be a statistically valid representation of all 11 Division I-A Conferences and independent institutions. The poll operates identically to the Coaches Poll, except with 114 members, the point values of the highest ranked teams are higher than the Coaches Poll. The maximum points a single team can earn is 2850 points. The poll ends at the conclusion of the regular season, and does not produce another poll after the bowl games.

References

*cite web | title=College Football Rankings | publisher=ESPN | accessdate=2007-08-27 | url=http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/rankingsindex?pollId=null&weekNumber=16&seasonYear=2005 | format=HTML | language=English
*cite web | title=2005 Bowl Championship Series Standings | url=http://www.bcsfootball.org/files/bcs-2005.pdf | publisher=The National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame, Inc | accessdate=2006-07-20 | language=English | format=PDF
*cite web | title=Client News | publisher=Harris Interactive | url=http://www.harrisinteractive.com/news/bcspoll.asp | accessdate=2006-07-20 | format=HTML | language=English
*cite web | title=Final Dec. 4th Rankings from the Harris Interactive College Football Poll | publisher=Harris Interactive | url=http://www.harrisinteractive.com/news/newsletters/bcsnews/BCS_Dec_4_2005.pdf | accessdate=2006-07-20 | format=PDF | language=English
*cite web | url=http://preseason.stassen.com/consensus/2005.html | title=2005 Preseason Consensus | publisher=Stassen.com | language=English | format=HTML | accessdate=2006-07-21
*cite web | url=http://www.bcsfootball.org/index2.cfm?page=standings | title=BCS Standings | publisher=BCSfootball.org | language=English | format=HTML | accessdate=2006-07-31

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