"We felt like college football fans in general had come to expect a Top 25 ranking," said Long, explaining why they're doing it. "We also said we wanted to provide an opportunity for fans to see what the committee is thinking as the process occurs."
The members have promised they'll start over over each week, from scratch, as though they hadn't met and ranked teams a few days earlier.
It's clear they will spend far more time evaluating teams than media members or coaches ever have in the other polls. They'll have done a lot more research and watched a lot more football. In their meetings, they'll discuss and debate the merits of all sorts of data points. Long said Monday's meeting included "lively, frequent and sometimes pointed" discussion.
