Hawaii to Sugar Bowl emphasizes shift in power structure

Cinderella has bum rushed Bushwood.

Used the wrong fork.

Farted at the annual cotillion. Mooned Judge Smails.

The Warriors look to continue their season of celebration in New Orleans. (US Presswire)

The unwashed and unwanted of college football broke through this season, stealing tradition -- and taking it to the (Animal) house.

Ol' Rodney -- God rest his soul -- would have loved it.

"Hey, Moose, Rocco," to paraphrase the great Dangerfield, "help the BCS bowl directors find their checkbooks, will ya?"

The big dogs won at the top again. Ohio State vs. LSU will play for the national championship. Such as it is. The No. 1 Buckeyes haven't beaten a top 20 team this season. The No. 2 Tigers lost twice to teams with a combined nine losses.

A bunch of other similarly mediocre squads will cry for their spot in the game. But the season was defined by the non-traditional. Three of the 10 teams in the BCS announced Sunday night -- Illinois, Kansas and Hawaii -- have been to a combined two major bowls since 1969.

Hawaii's closeup awaits in its first major bowl (Sugar) 4,200 miles away from its island home. Three times in four years schools from non-BCS leagues (Utah, Boise and Hawaii) have made it to BCS bowls. Missouri and West Virginia each came within a game of playing for the national championship.

There was even a minor snit when Kansas, which lost to Missouri, got the BCS berth (in the Orange) instead of the Cotton Bowl-bound Tigers.

Within a decade of starting their programs two upstart teams in Florida -- South Florida and Florida Atlantic -- each went to a bowl.

It looks like for now, and maybe forever, college football is going to have accept new blood.

"When you buck tradition sometimes it ruffles others," WAC commissioner Karl Benson said. "I think we're seeing a change in the landscape of college football."