ATHENS - The subject of coaches voting in the USA Today poll, and the validity of that, has come up again thanks to Lane Kiffin relinquishing his vote after it became public. The Southern California head coach gave up his vote after it being revealed he had voted his team No. 1, after saying he wouldn't.

Georgia head coach Mark Richt has a vote, as usual. He said he'd heard about the Kiffin situation, which has led to more talk on whether coaches should vote, and whether coaches even cast their own ballot or have their staff do it.

"All I know is what I do," Richt said on Friday. "I do my best. Do I watch all those games? I can't watch all those games. I watch highlights. I'll read some line scores. I do make my vote. I do vote. I do try to vote in a way that if everybody saw it I could make some sense of it."

Richt said he thought he would agree with not releasing a poll until about the fifth week of the season.

"Early in the year it's just hard. It's hard to get a pretty good gauge," Richt said.

Then Richt provided some insight on how he does his poll. And yes, it does involve his sports information director, Claude Felton.

"Claude gives me a composite - however many people have a poll, he'll just grab them all and give me the consensus, 1-25, and that's where I start," Richt said. "And then I just try to gauge it from there as we go."

Richt did not state, and was not asked, where he ranked his own Georgia team. The coaches' ballots are not released until the final week; Kiffin's was released by USA Today under a new policy aimed at preventing coaches from being misleading about their vote.