Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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UNDER THE DOME Notre Dame football beat writer Eric Hansen votes in the Associated Press' top-25 poll and dis- cussed the process with Blue & Gold Illustrated. Blue & Gold Illustrated: What are the eligibility requirements for becoming an AP voter and how long have you been one? Hansen: "I don't know if there's an eligibility requirement other than you obviously cover a college football team and they have a certain number of voters from every state. The person in charge of AP sports for that state picks the people. I don't remem- ber how long I've been doing it, but it seems like forever." Blue & Gold Illustrated: What kind of instructions or guidelines do they give you? Hansen: "They do give you a pretty thick hand- book for football. The basketball instruction hand- book is less than a page long. When they printed ones out back in the day, the football one was at least 10 pages long of things you need to keep in mind as a voter and that they would remove you if they saw any hint of homerism. Certainly, if you make a mistake they would remove you." Blue & Gold Illustrated: How do you prepare to fill out the ballot each week? Hansen: "As soon as I get back from the game, I make a printout of what my top 25 was last week — not the actual top 25 from last week, but what my 25 was. I go through and look at all the teams receiving votes, including the ones that aren't in my poll. Then I go through and write every score of every game involving those teams. That's the first step. "Then I go through and I read every game story and look at all the stats from every one of those games because there may be something crazy. … I want to look and see anything fluky or if there was a key injury. "Then I go through and put teams in order. As I'm doing that — this takes about two and a half hours — I go back and look at every team and their com- plete résumé for the season." Blue & Gold Illustrated: Do you expect AP voters to adjust their voting based on what the selection committee for the Col- lege Football Playoff will empha- size? Hansen: "I'm not sure. I'm cer- tainly open-minded to hearing what their ideas are. I count strength of schedule in a lot. … I'm hoping the committee weighs strength of schedule very much. "I would certainly take a look at what they're doing. I look at the Sagarin ratings, too. I think you need to be open-minded to being better." Blue & Gold Illustrated: Do you get communica- tions from fans calling you a homer or claiming you are biased against Notre Dame? Hansen: "Not too often. This year Notre Dame's either been ranked where I've had them or a little bit higher than what I had them. "The one year Notre Dame fans got on me was the year they played for the national championship [in 2012]. When they were undefeated I might've had them [No.] 3 or 4 at some point. There were people that wanted me to put them [No.] 1 or 2, and that's before Kansas State and Oregon lost." — Andrew Owens Five Questions With … SOUTH BEND TRIBUNE BEAT WRITER ERIC HANSEN Hansen is a voter for the weekly Associated Press' top-25 poll, a task he has taken very seriously. PHOTO COURTESY SOUTH BEND TRIBUNE