Bowl match-ups prompt reform calls

The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) announced Sunday that Oklahoma and Louisiana State would play in the national championship game in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 4. The problem is that the University of Southern California, which like Oklahoma and LSU has only one loss, ended the season ranked No. 1 in the Associated Press news media poll and the USA Today/ESPN coaches poll.

Now the often-criticized system of ranking teams and slotting them into four bowl games worth nearly US$90 million has created the possibility of two national college football champions: the winner of the LSU-Oklahoma matchup in the BCS title game, and USC if it defeats Michigan in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1.

The coaches poll automatically awards its final No. 1 ranking to the winner of the BCS title game. The news media voters can choose any team as the champion.

"We're the No. 1 team in the country and we'll do everything we can to hold that spot," said Pete Carroll, the USC coach, whose team finished the regular season on Saturday with a 52-28 victory over Oregon State. "If we win that football game, we feel like we'll be the No. 1 team in the country regardless of what that other bowl is called."

The BCS, which was created in 1998 to try to match the top two teams in the country in a championship game, was supposed to prevent a split title, which last occurred in 1997 when the coaches awarded their No. 1 ranking to an undefeated Michigan and the news media their title to undefeated Nebraska.

Until the system had generated most of its off-the-field negative headlines from hearings in Congress, where members of the Presidential Coalition for Athletics Reform told lawmakers that the BCS could be in violation of antitrust laws and created a system of haves and have-nots, favoring members of the six most powerful football conferences and Notre Dame, an independent in football.

University among the five non-BCS, Division I-A conferences insist that their programs are unfairly left out of the national championship picture and are branded as second rate, while the six major conferences and Notre Dame control about 95 percent of the US$90 million BCS television contract.

But after previously undefeated Oklahoma, which had been the consensus No. 1 team in the nation, lost by 35-7 to Kansas State on Saturday in the Big 12 Conference championship, the spotlight shone on the BCS's complicated ranking system. It is a formula that factors the polls, seven computer rankings, strength of schedule, losses and a bonus point system for so-called "quality wins."

While Sooners (12-1) dropped from the top spot to No. 3 in the polls, they had the best average among the computer rankings and were judged to have the 11th-toughest schedule in the nation. They retained the No. 1 spot in the BCS ranking, leaving USC (11-1) and LSU (12-1), a 34-13 victor over Georgia on Saturday in the Southeastern Conference championship game, fighting for No. 2. USC was fighting history even though it had been ranked right behind Oklahoma in both the news media and coaches polls because no Pac-10 team has ever played in a BCS title game.

"At the end of the year, we're No. 1 in the system," Oklahoma Coach Bob Stoops said. "There's nothing to apologize for."

LSU helped by the strength-of-schedule component, which is calculated by determining the cumulative record of a team's opponents, as well as the record of its opponents' opponents. The Tigers played the 29th-strongest schedule, according to the BCS ranking, better than the Trojans' 37th-ranked schedule.

"You hear coaches say it's a game of inches," said Paul Hoolahan, the executive director of the Sugar Bowl. "Unfortunately with the BCS, now it's a game of fractions."

The BCS selection process has been criticized before. In 2000, a Florida State team with one loss was selected to play undefeated Oklahoma in the national title game even though the Seminoles had lost to another one-loss team, Miami.

In 2001, a Nebraska team with one loss earned a berth in the championship game against undefeated Miami even though the Cornhuskers lost its season finale, 62-36, to Colorado and failed to make the Big 12 Conference championship game.

But never in the BCS' history has the top-ranked team in both polls been left out of the mix.

Sunday, both USC's Carroll and LSU coach Nick Saban bemoaned the lack of a playoff format in Division I-A college football.

"Unfortunately, there seems to be three teams that people would like to see, and the system can't satisfy three teams," Saban said. "Unfortunately, we can't have all three teams because we don't have a playoff."

The pairings for the remaining three BCS bowls will feature Big East champion Miami (10-2) against Atlantic Coast Conference champion Florida State (10-2) in the Orange Bowl on Jan. 1 and Big 12 champion Kansas State (11-3) against Big Ten runner-up Ohio State (10-2) in the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 2.