No B(C)S: Rose Bowl-winning USC would be people's champ

Only the Bowl Championship Series could devalue its own national championship game.

Southern California soared to the top of both human polls Sunday, confirming what became evident Saturday night: This is the worst predicament the BCS could have wished on itself.

There is no doubt that the Trojans will get a share of the national championship in the Associated Press media poll if they beat Michigan on Jan. 1 in the Rose Bowl. Ah, but to crown the BCS champion, the American Football Coaches Association might have to go against the wishes of more than 59 percent of its voters.

You see, 37 of 63 coaches in the coaches poll voted USC No. 1 on Sunday. It's assumed that at least that many would vote again for the Trojans if they won the Rose Bowl. Except they can't. Under an agreement made five years ago to legitimize the BCS, the No. 1 spot in the coaches poll goes to the BCS title game winner.

This year, as we painfully found out Sunday, that is either Oklahoma or LSU in the Sugar Bowl. The coaches poll voters on Jan. 5 will be allowed to vote for Nos. 2 through 25.

You read that right: No matter what happens, the No. 1 team in the coaches poll has no chance of staying No. 1.

"Coaches have always said football is a game of inches," said Paul Hoolahan, the Sugar Bowl executive director. "Unfortunately with the BCS, it has become a game of fractions."

The top-ranked Trojans finished No. 3 in the BCS and out of the Sugar Bowl mostly because of the strength of schedule component. That would be somewhat palatable, except the Trojans played Notre Dame and Auburn in the non-conference.

"I'm not certain that any answer I give you is going to satisfy USC fans," BCS chairman Mike Tranghese said. "I feel for the USC people. It's unbelievable the way they've handled themselves. You're disappointed for them because they obviously wanted to play in the game. When you have this kind of system and you have three teams so closely bunched together, it's hard."

What looms is the possibility of USC winning the AP poll and the vote of public opinion -- not just a split national championship, but three-quarters of one.

"We're the No. 1 team in America, we're going to try to hold onto that and be a national champion," USC coach Pete Carroll said. "We look at the Rose Bowl as being the national championship game for us."

Except that it isn't, totally. There was a weird sense of stepping around land mines involved in Selection Sunday. Coming off a 28-point loss, Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops was offered congratulations by LSU coach Nick Saban on a conference call. Tranghese said the system will have to be examined. Hoolanhan said he appreciated the way Saban "handled it."

But wait, didn't LSU just win the SEC title for the second time in three years? Who is going to be offended here? USC to start with.

Look at it as the day the BCS finally died. It won't happen tomorrow or next month, but some time soon, the system is going to have to be revamped. Tranghese basically said as much a couple of times on Sunday.

The BCS commissioners will meet in Phoenix in April for, hopefully, something more than mai tais and golf. They already are in the process of opening up access for the BCS have-nots. What happened Sunday ought to accelerate the process.

This year's results were so distasteful that even the most staunch supporters of the 6-year-old system have to be questioning the BCS' credibility.

"If this doesn't shake it up, I don't know what will," said Oregon athletic director Bill Moos, whose team was edged out of the BCS title game two years ago by a Nebraska team that, like Oklahoma, didn't even win its conference title.

Two years ago, Moos put forth "The Moos Plan" after his Ducks were jobbed. He suggested a return to the traditional bowl structure. The winners of the four major bowls would then go into a pool. Some combination of BCS rankings and perhaps a human element would be used to select two teams to play for the national championship.

Moos' plan has already been discussed by BCS presidents and makes perfect sense. If you want to call an extra game a playoff or not, doesn't matter. But it's clear something has to change.

"This is pretty significant," Tranghese said. "This is the first time we had a team that was No. 1 in the human polls that doesn't get to the championship. It's significant to say the least."

• For the second time in three years, a team that didn't even win its conference title is playing for the national championship. Oklahoma was blown out 35-7 Saturday night by Kansas State in the Big 12 Championship Game and still held to the No. 1 spot in the BCS.

• LSU edged out USC for the No. 2 spot by .16 of a point. That harkens back to two years ago when Nebraska lost its final regular-season game at Colorado and, through a series of upsets, was able to play for the national title by .05 of a point over Colorado.

• Then there's the issue of bias, or the perception of it by the Pac-10. Of the six BCS conferences, the Pac-10 is still the only one that hasn't played in the BCS title game.

Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen released a statement Sunday saying, "it is most unfortunate that the other elements of the BCS standings have overruled the two polls and taken USC out of the national championship game which the Pac-10 has consistently supported."

"If there has ever been a West Coast bias ..." Moos said. "We felt we got it when we didn't go in 2001. Now mighty USC who has won a few national championships, had several Heisman Trophy winners etc. They get shafted. Look out."

• Only the BCS could cause the Pac-10 mixed feelings about playing in the Rose Bowl. For the first time in three years, the Grandaddy will get its traditional matchup, but at the expense of the Pac-10 being able to land its first consensus national championship in 31 years.

• Eight coaches still voted Oklahoma No. 1 on Sunday, suggesting two things -- 1) they voted before nodding off in front of the television set Saturday night or 2) they tried to artificially prop up their own poll by keeping Oklahoma first so it would in some small way legitimize the madness.

• The last-minute shakeup caused the Orange Bowl to accept a rematch of Miami and Florida State. Because the Fiesta Bowl had a selection advantage, it matched Kansas State and Ohio State.

The Orange Bowl matchup is great for fans -- those that show up. When is too much too much? By the time the Seminoles and Hurricanes meet in the ACC opener during Labor Day weekend next year, they will have met three times in 11 months.

The most fair matchup is the one we won't see: LSU-USC. The teams that have won their leagues and have winning streaks of seven (LSU) and eight (USC). Even those in Oklahoma couldn't howl about that game.

Saturday's loss to K-State was the program's worst since 1998 and worst of the Bob Stoops era. It came to a three-loss Kansas State team that was beaten at home by Marshall using a backup quarterback.

Apparently, only eight voting coaches missed those facts.

Happy, sad or confused know this: In the old system, little would be changed. USC would still be No. 1 playing in the Rose Bowl. The bowls would find some way to match Oklahoma and LSU in one of the other bowls because they are the two highest ranked teams behind the Trojans.

The difference is USC would have a chance to let the voters decide.

Trust the polls totally? No. That's how we got into this BCS mess in the first place. To paraphrase Planet of the Apes, the stupid humans are fallible. You leave it strictly up to the pollsters and you risk some messy subjectivity.

Two examples: Nebraska won an overtime game late in 1997 against Missouri and dropped from No. 1 to No. 3. That same year, consensus No. 1 Michigan won the Rose Bowl over Washington State and ended up sharing the title with Nebraska. The coaches, it seems, awarded the retiring Tom Osborne a going away present.

You do not want this again. Nor do you want the shameless conduct of LSU fans, who sent out a bulk e-mail last week to AP voters trying to convince them to jump their Tigers over USC. A quick check of the Arrowhead Stadium press box Saturday showed that the spammed sportswriters were more likely to ignore the invasion of their cyberspace than reward LSU.

Who needs another solicitor calling during dinner time or ringing the doorbell in the middle of the day? Hey, there are deadlines to be met.

Call it playoff or call it progress. But, please guys, give us another game, a fifth BCS bowl that would address this type of thing.

The Moos Plan would at least allow USC to play for a national championship instead of having to beg for half of one.