Three Cheers for the Irish | by Pat

As has been reported before, the Harris Interactive College Football poll is replacing the AP poll as a contributor to the BCS bowl equation. Today, the identities of the 114 voters were released. Here is a description of how the voters were chosen.

Each of the 11 NCAA Division I-A conferences were asked to nominate up to 30 potential voters. Through random selection, Harris Interactive found 10 voters per conference. Notre Dame is represented by three voters and Army and Navy have a combined one vote. BCS conferences will hold a 55 percent majority, according to BCS spokesman Bob Burda.

However, with some nominees, the process was still a mystery.

"All I know is every conference must be represented, and being an ex-player from (UL-Monroe), I guess I'm representing the Sun Belt Conference," he(Duhe) said. "How they chose me, I don't know. It's like winning the lottery."

Here is a link to the names (pdf) of the voters. Have fun spotting the ex-coaches and ex-players on the list. How many connections to ND can you find?

From the looks of things, the three voters that seem to be the Irish nominees are Lou Holtz, Rocket Ismail, and Roger Valdiserri. For those that don't know who he is, Valdiserri worked in the Notre Dame administration for 33 years in a variety of roles including associate athletic director, but is best known for his longtime work as ND's Sports Information Director. He's a member of the College Information Sports Directors Hall of Fame and has received numerous awards for his work under the Dome. Remember the story about how Joe Theismann changed the pronuncation of his last name to rhyme with Heisman? That was Valdiserri's idea.

In a move that I wish the Coaches Poll and AP Poll would follow, the first Top 25 Harris poll will be released September 25th, after teams have had a chance to get a few games under their belt.