About the Legends Poll
History
The Legends Poll has successfully operated for five years.
At its genesis, the company assembled nearly 20 legendary college football coaches under the brand The Master Coaches Survey, and in 2005 published a Top 25 college football poll on its own Web site. In addition, two of the Legends Coaches appeared on a weekly segment for ESPN Classic’s Classic Now to discuss the poll and relevant college football topics.
The Legends Poll is an advisory poll comprised of 19 former college football coaches, including 14 College Football Hall of Fame Members and represents eight national championships and over 3,300 victories combined. The legendary coaches review all of the relevant game tapes following each week of competition, discuss each team’s performance during a weekly conference call, then establish a ranking of the Top 25 teams. The Legends Poll Top 25 can be found on the Legends Channel website (www.legendschannel.com), including a breakdown of how the coaches voted.
As part of their selection process, the coaches not only attend games across the nation, but spend countless hours reviewing the DVDs of the previous weekend’s match-ups. Through this extensive process, the expert panel of coaches selects the IMPACT Player of the Week.
In 2006, The Master Coaches Survey was distributed in print to over 50 newspapers nationwide and online through ESPN.com.
In 2008, the company, now Legends Channel, LLC, established a partnership with The Sporting News to distribute the poll and analysis through The Sporting News Today, a daily digital newspaper. The company has also established a successful media outlet through radio partnerships with Sporting News Radio and the Motor Racing Network.
Who are the Legends Football Coaches?
Their names are synonymous with college football excellence. The legendary coaches are all College Football Hall of Fame members, or former coaches who are on track to be Hall of Fame members in the future. Here are the current voting members:
Bobby Bowden, Frank Broyles, John Cooper, Fisher DeBerry, Vince Dooley, Terry Donahue, Pat Dye, LaVell Edwards, Don James, Frank Kush, Dick MacPherson, Bill Mallory, Don Nehlen, John Ralston, John Robinson, Bobby Ross, R.C. Slocum, Gene Stallings and George Welsh. The other non-voting members are: Hayden Fry, Tom Osborne and Bill Snyder.
The Legends Poll Mission
The legendary coaches discuss team strengths and weaknesses every week of the season to separate the pretenders from the contenders. The evaluation process is very comprehensive, and the standards are beyond reproach.
The Legends Poll is unique because it is made up of three components … the most experienced coaches, who actually watch the games, and discuss and deliberate before they cast their vote. No other system has any of these components.
