Alabama Football G12 at Auburn (Iron Bowl)

Alabama head coach Nick Saban reacts to Alabama tight ends/special teams coordinator coach Bobby Williams during the first half of the Alabama at Auburn Iron Bowl football game, Saturday, Nov. 28, 2015, at Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn, Ala. Vasha Hunt/vhunt@al.com ORG XMIT: ALBIN401

(VASHA HUNT)

How weak a document is the NCAA's preliminary survey of Football Bowl Subdivision staff sizes? It's terribly flawed in its methodology, not to mention its basic math.

The survey, as first reported by CBSsports.com, purports to give a general look at the number of people working on the sport of football at all FBS schools in 2016. It lists staff members in different categories: On-field coaches, strength and conditioning, graduate assistants, football operations and off-field/recruiting.

For Auburn, the survey lists 10 on-field coaches, five strength-and-conditioning coaches, four GAs, 10 football operations staffers and eight off-field/recruiting staffers - for a total of 41.

The first of several problems with that number: 10 + 5 + 4 + 10 + 8 = 37. Not 41.

The survey's totals for Georgia and South Carolina don't add up, either. Literally.

Dennis Dodd, who reported the story for CBSsports.com, wrote that the NCAA said its numbers came from "mere website research." That explains a major part of the problem with the survey. Official program websites don't tell all.

Look at the current athletics department staff directory on AuburnTigers.com. It lists 26 names under the Football department, but it's not up to date because new offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey is not yet included. The directory also lists eight other staff members under different departments with the word "football" in their title, including academic support staff.

There are no grad assistants listed, although clearly the program has GAs and the NCAA found that number elsewhere on the same website. More on that in a minute.

Based on the overall athletics department staff directory of the Auburn website, there are 34 staff members working with the football program. The four grad assistants not listed there would bring that total to 38. The unlisted Lindsey would make 39, but even that number has to be low because not everyone who works with football has the word "football" in his or her title.

Maybe the NCAA staffer who compiled the Auburn number miscounted because three staff members - the director of football recruiting operations, the head football strength and conditioning coach and the head football athletics trainer - are listed twice in the school's staff directory.

But wait. There's more to confuse the NCAA and you.

Under the separate Football section of the athletics department website, it lists 10 on-field coaches, including Lindsey, and 29 support staff members, including four graduate assistants. That would total 39.

OK, so it's now 2017 and the NCAA looked at the numbers last year, but that still doesn't excuse the association's inability to add.

At Alabama, the NCAA survey found no grad assistants, although clearly the program does have GAs, even if they're not listed on the official RollTide.com staff directory or on the coaching staff directory in the website's Football section.

At present, that overall staff directory has 32 people listed under the Football department, and there are 10 other people in the directory with "football" in their title. That would be a total of 42, not counting graduate assistants.

The directory lists seven football analysts but doesn't include the recently hired Chris Weinke. It also doesn't break down academic support personnel by sport.

How many football staffers did the NCAA survey find at Alabama? It found 31. Even Nick Saban would have to chuckle at that number. Curiously, the survey listed just one person under strength and conditioning, even though the program's official website lists five strength-and-conditioning coaches with football in their title.

Let's hope the NCAA staffers doing the math for APR scores aren't the same ones who worked on this staff size survey.

All joking aside, it's not easy from the outside to determine exactly how many people work on the expanded football staffs at Alabama, Auburn and beyond. The difficulty in obtaining accurate data is going to make it even harder for the NCAA to assess whether the numbers are getting out of hand and the playing field is too unbalanced between the haves and have-nots.

The NCAA's first attempt to quantify the subject doesn't inspire much confidence that the issue will be resolved promptly and fairly.