I'm outraged, too. I'm outraged that Joe Theismann, when trying to be witty about the BCS, announced they should drop the "C."
How tired is that joke?
I'm also outraged that the polls are suddenly seen as beyond reproach. That many think USC is an absolute No. 1 when unranked Cal absolutely beat No. 1. And that anyone thinks college football doesn't get a boost by this kind of controversy.
But I'm mostly outraged after discovering who ultimately put OU in the Sugar Bowl.
Bob Stoops? Try Mack Brown.
The usual outrage today comes from those stunned that USC isn't in the BCS championship.
"I learned about life in general," said a reflective Trojans cornerback named Will Poole.
"You can't let a computer make decisions for you. Computers are going to take over. The next thing you know, everyone is going to be out of a job. Computers are going to play football."
Poole could take his Terminator-like concerns to his governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"If we let computers run the world," Poole continued, "what are humans going to do?"
For starters, humans could think for themselves. They could look at the polls, remember the prejudices that have always existed in them and understand why computers come in handy.
The coaches, for example, rank Boise State at No. 16 ahead of Florida for the most transparent reason: Boise State only has one loss. But the BCS puts Florida at No. 15 with Boise State two spots lower.
Why? Florida played the country's fifth-toughest schedule. Boise State? The 105th.
It isn't outrageous to think this: That Boise State wouldn't come within three touchdowns of the Gators.
Computers look at numbers, not sentiment, and that's what they were doing as late as Saturday. Then critics were outraged (again) that Syracuse's victory over Notre Dame meant something to USC's ranking.
But in order to formulate strength of schedule, aren't all the results necessary? It should have surprised no one that Syracuse-Notre Dame was part of that data.
It also shouldn't have surprised that the computers weren't awed by the USC schedule.
The Trojans' toughest opponent was Washington State; Oklahoma playing in Lubbock this season wasn't much worse.
Losing to 7-6 California certainly doesn't impress, either, and USC also didn't have to play a conference championship out of state and within a three-hour drive of the opponent.
Kansas State in Kansas City. That's neutral?
More significant, the Sooners played this game after being told they could lose and still go to the Sugar Bowl. That's no excuse for getting blown out, but it's likely a reason for what happened.
The computers didn't factor such intangibles. They instead spit out a verdict, and the ultimate judge agrees. Oddsmaker Danny Sheridan already rates Oklahoma a 5 1/2-point favorite over LSU.
The computers can be wrong, too, and the New York Times' hard drive usually is. Today, the newspaper that gave the world Jayson Blair ranks two-loss UT ahead of one-loss OU, as if 65-13 never happened.
That's the only place on earth where Texas comes out ahead this season against OU.
Texas suffered the October loss, then suffered Oklahoma's December loss. That's why the Longhorns trudge out to the Holiday Bowl again instead of to the Fiesta.
There's more, though, and this time the crimson devil is in the details.
This time, the Sooners were rewarded not just because they took apart the Longhorns, but also because the Longhorns didn't come apart after Oct. 12.
BCS ratings, as in golf scores, are better the lower they are. And the Sooners had 0.5 sliced off their BCS rating because they beat Texas.
This falls under quality-win points (QW) that come with beating a top-10 team. Texas, the eventual No. 5, thus meant a minus-0.5 to Oklahoma.
Had the Longhorns lost just one more game, the Sooners wouldn't have gotten that QW. Without that, LSU and USC would have cut Oklahoma's BCS lead by more than half.
But that accounts only for the bonus points that a highly ranked Texas provided Oklahoma. Had Texas fallen badly, OU's strength of schedule would have fallen, too.
By how much? Just as Notre Dame losing mattered to USC, Texas winning mattered to Oklahoma.
So give Brown credit for righting his program. But also give him credit for lifting up the very program that tortures him.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later