Monday, December 6, 2004
Cal-less BCS once again a mess
Bears, Pac-10 miss out on Rose Bowl, $4.5 million payout
By TED MILLER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
With the Bowl Championship Series, it's always something.
USC and Oklahoma, ranked No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, by both human polls the entire season as well as in the final BCS standings, will play for the national title in the Orange Bowl on Jan. 4. That doesn't mean the controversial system worked to everyone's satisfaction -- not by a long shot.
Unbeaten Auburn, ranked No. 3 in both polls and by the BCS, was unable to rally a massive defection of voters for its cause after beating Tennessee 38-28 in the SEC championship game Saturday.
The Tigers (12-0) will face No. 9 Virginia Tech in the Sugar Bowl, hoping perhaps that voters irritated by the inscrutable system might try again to split the national championships, like last year when the top-ranked Trojans were the victims.
While Auburn couldn't muster voter support, it's clear that Texas coach Mack Brown's aggressive appeals over the past month did -- at California and the Pac-10's expense.
The Longhorns (10-1) will play No. 13 Michigan (9-2) in the Rose Bowl, the first meeting between the storied powers.
Fueled by pollsters reversing their votes after the final weekend of the regular season, Texas pushed past California in the BCS standings. Instead of playing in its first Rose Bowl since 1959, Cal was relegated to the Holiday Bowl and a date with No. 23 Texas Tech.
That will cost the Pac-10 about $4.5 million, the payout for placing two teams in BCS bowls -- about $330,000 per school, after expenses.
Cal could have used the cash, too, as it fights to prevent Washington from stealing coach Jeff Tedford away. Missing out on the Rose Bowl -- an unexpected shock to most fans -- also might deflate the financially strapped athletic department's fundraising efforts that had been buoyed by a successful season, further delaying the facilities upgrades needed to keep Tedford.
That money will now go to the Big 12, after Texas, ranked No. 6 in The Associated Press poll and No. 5 in the ESPN-USA Today coaches poll, nipped the Bears for the fourth slot in the BCS standings and a guaranteed at-large selection.
Utah of the Mountain West Conference earned the second at-large berth -- the champions of the Pac-10, ACC, SEC, Big 12, Big Ten and Big East get automatic berths -- becoming the first team from a non-BCS conference selected for a BCS bowl. The Utes (11-0) will play Big East representative Pittsburgh (8-3) in the Fiesta Bowl.
The Utes will have a complicated coaching situation. Head coach Urban Meyer will be coaching his final game before taking over at Florida, while his defensive coordinator, Mike Sanford, has been named UNLV's new coach.
As for the rest of the Pac-10: Arizona State will face Purdue in the Sun Bowl (Dec.31), Oregon State will play Notre Dame in the Insight Bowl (Dec. 28) and UCLA will square off with Wyoming in the Las Vegas Bowl (Dec. 23).
Cal's poll support had been consistently eroding since a one-point win over Oregon on Nov. 6, and the Bears held the slimmest of leads over Texas going into the final weekend. They struggled while winning 26-16 at Southern Miss, and yesterday lost 28 points in the coaches poll and 11 points in the AP tally to fall to No. 5 in the BCS standings, because Texas held a decisive lead with the computers.
It was clear that Tedford, while trying to handle the situation with grace, wasn't thrilled.
"We're obviously very, very disappointed," Tedford said on ABC's selection show. "If you have to go in and try to blow people out, I don't think that serves the integrity of the game. It's not about one game, it's about a season."
Brown had been lobbying publically and behind the scenes for weeks, but he said he "felt sorry for Cal," yesterday.
"The system doesn't work and we understand that," Brown said.
Not so, said BCS coordinator and Big 12 commissioner Kevin Weiberg. The BCS will match a consensus No. 1 vs. No. 2, and that should be enough.
"This happens to be the year in which not only do we have a consensus in the human polls, but we also have all six of the computer rankings having these teams at 1-2 as well," he said. "And that really is the limited objective that we set out to try to achieve through the BCS."
USC leads the all-time series with Oklahoma 5-2-1 and has won four in a row, the last meeting a 20-10 win in 1992. Both teams have had recent success in the Orange Bowl, the Sooners beating Florida State for the 2000 national title, while USC crushed Iowa in 2002.
Trojans coach Pete Carroll, though celebrating an undeniably compelling, star-laden matchup, took a moment during a teleconference yesterday to mourn Cal's fate, and take a poke at the system that few seem to like, even those at the top of the heap.
"It certainly seems to be a system vulnerable to ridicule," he said.
The way Brown orchestrated such a massive shift in the poll seems to be earning a high degree of ridicule. While Weiberg said he doesn't think the anonymity of the coaches poll creates potential conflicts of interest -- why would a Big 12 coach elevate Cal if it cost his school $330,000 -- he did admit being troubled by Brown's lobbying.
And that playoff that everyone seems to want? The message remains the same: Don't hold your breath.
"At this point, the presidents and chancellors of these colleges and universities have been adamant about the idea of no NFL-style playoff," Weiberg said. "And until there is some change, I think we're going to have to continue to work to try to make this system, as imperfect as it may be, work to the best of our ability."
BCS BOWLS
Game Matchup Date
Rose Bowl Michigan (9-2) vs. Texas (10-1) Jan. 1
Fiesta Bowl Utah (11-0) vs. Pittsburgh (8-3) Jan. 1
Sugar Bowl Auburn (12-0) vs. Virginia Tech (10-2) Jan. 3
Orange Bowl USC(12-0) vs. Oklahoma (12-0) Jan. 4 |
