By Michael V. Hannigan
The 7-0 Trinity Valley Community College Cardinals are ranked No. 4 in this week’s NJCAA poll.
As someone who has watched the Cardinals steamroll highly ranked teams all season long, I wondered why they weren’t higher than No. 4. So I did some research and I found out … well, I found out that I really can’t find out why they are ranked where they are.
But I did find out how.
The NJCAA rankings are a combination of computer and human vote.
NJCAA Football Computer Rankings account for one-third of the vote, according to NJCAA Assistant Director of Media Relations Michael Teague. The computer rankings are added to the mix after the final game of September, which may account for why TVCC dropped one place last week.
The other two-thirds of the rankings come from a poll of a nine-member committee composed of one representative from each conference and two annually rotating at-large voters.
Teague said the highest and lowest vote for each team is dropped.
This year’s committee is composed of:
- NFC – John Jackson, AD at Dean
- MACJC – Jim Southward, Conference Commissioner
- ICCAC – Thom McDonald, Conference Commissioner
- MCAC – Buster Gilliss, AD at Bismarck State (non-football member)
- KJCCC – Randy Stange, AD at Hutchinson
- SWJCFC – Roark Montgomery, AD at Navarro and chair of the Football Committee
- WSFL – Greg Silcox, AD at Paradise Valley (non-football member)
- ICCAC – Kevin Twait, Iowa Central head coach (At-Large Voter)
- Independents – Bert Williams, Georgia Military head coach (At-Large Voter)
These nine individuals, plus the computer, are the ones responsible for the weekly rankings.