For the first time this season, the UW football team is ranked in both the Associated Press writers poll and the USA Today coaches poll.

Coach Bret Bielema, whose Badgers were unranked until their impressive 37-0 victory over a red-hot Purdue team last week, made it clear at his Monday news conference that he thinks the coaches poll, which is used in the BCS formula, has more credibility than the writers poll, which isn't.

Bielema defended the coaches poll even though it suffers from complaints that many coaches devote little if any time to filling out their ballots or that they vote to enhance the standing of their coaching buddies and their fellow conference teams.

"I don't mean this as any disrespect at all to anybody in this room who votes on polls," Bielema said, "but I know there's a certain debate out there that the coach's poll should have less weight in the BCS formula, because I know the AP's doesn't (get used) and the coach's does. I think coaches have a greater appreciation of who really is a good football team and who can go out week in and week out and do what a schedule allows you to do.

"They aren't so enamored with (final scores). I think a large reason that we moved up so quickly is because it was a 37-0 win. If it was 37-24, I would still think it's a pretty impressive win based off of what I'd seen Purdue do the last two weeks. I don't mean to get on a soapbox, but I respect that the coach's poll carries the weight it does."

Just curious, but if the coaches put less weight on impressive margins of victory than the writers do, why did they jump UW to 22nd after the Purdue win when the writers only jumped them to 24th?

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