Mack Brown is obligated to vote the BCS title game winner
No. 1 on his final coaches' poll ballot.
AP

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Did Texas coach Mack Brown and Utah coach Kyle Whittingham recently switch professions and become writers, thus making them eligible to vote in the final AP poll? That's the only explanation I can come up with after both Brown and Whittingham proudly declared that they would be voting their respective teams as the No. 1 team in the nation on their final ballots.

I'm sorry, but those votes hold about as much weight as an online fan poll at this point.

Brown, Whittingham and every coach that votes in the coaches' poll is obligated to vote the winner of Thursday's BCS National Championship Game as the No. 1 team. In fact, they don't even get to vote for the No. 1 team, as American Football Coaches Association executive director Grant Teaff reminded everyone on Sunday after Whittingham's declaration following Utah's Sugar Bowl win over Alabama.

"This poll is not, since 1998, to select the national champion," he said. "The winner of the (BCS championship) game is the winner of the (BCS) trophy, which means the coaches do not vote for No. 1, they vote for No. 2 down."

So while Brown and Whittingham may think their team is No. 1, they won't be able to vote them any higher than No. 2 on their final ballot. By the way, if they really believed their teams were the best, why didn't they vote them No. 1 going into their bowl game when their vote actually mattered?

The only poll that matters in terms of getting a split national champion at this point is the AP poll, and while there 2009-01-06might be a smattering of support for Utah, USC and Texas, there certainly won't be enough to give any team a split of the national championship this year.