Southern California and Oklahoma finished atop the final Bowl Championship Series standings Sunday and will meet in the Orange Bowl on Jan. 4 in a title game that might not produce a unanimous national champion.
Auburn, which finished 12-0 just like the Trojans and Sooners, finished third in the BCS points system that relies on The Associated Press and coaches polls, plus computer ratings. So the Tigers will have to settle for a Sugar Bowl berth against Virginia Tech on Jan. 3.
USC finished with .9770 in the standings, and Oklahoma had .9681. Auburn, third much of the season, had .9331. Oklahoma's strong computer rankings kept the Sooners ahead of the Tigers in the BCS standings, while USC held on to first place thanks to its strong showing in the polls.
Last season, USC was left out of the BCS title game, despite being No. 1 in both the AP and coaches polls at the end of the regular season. Instead, Oklahoma played LSU in the Sugar Bowl, even though the Sooners lost the Big 12 title game.
When all the bowls were finished, LSU won the BCS championship, and USC was No. 1 in the final AP poll.
Utah (11-0) officially became the first team from a non-BCS conference to receive a bid to one of the four US$14 million bowl games, earning a spot in the Fiesta Bowl against Big East representative Pittsburgh (8-3).
The Utes, from the Mountain West Conference, will play their last game under coach Urban Meyer on Jan. 1 in Tempe, Arizona. Meyer is headed to Florida.
The Trojans and Sooners went wire to wire atop both polls; it's the first time Nos. 1 and 2 stayed the same from the AP preseason Top 25 through the final regular season poll, though the Sooners shared second with Auburn for one week.
So Sunday's Orange Bowl announcement was not surprising. Auburn, Oklahoma and USC all finished their regular seasons with wins Saturday, making it extremely unlikely that there would be any change at the top of the BCS.
Texas' move past Cal might have caught some people off guard, however.
It looked like the Bears controlled their BCS destiny a few weeks ago and simply needed to win out to reach the Rose Bowl for the first time since 1959. But Texas began gaining ground in the polls, especially with the coaches, as Longhorns coach Mack Brown lobbied for votes.
Texas' first BCS bid also means the Rose Bowl won't have its traditional Big Ten vs. Pac-10 matchup.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB