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 Friday, December 13, 2002
Huskers sneak into Pasadena
By Jack Arute
Special to ABC Sports Online
Let the celebration begin in Nebraska! But while the Husker faithful are toasting their trip to Pasadena, they might wish to consider putting TCU on their Christmas gift list. TCU's 14-13 upset win of Southern Miss. on Friday night most likely provided Big Red with a better strength of schedule ranking than a week ago. The .16 boost this week was more than triple the eventual margin that put Nebraska into the title game.
Oregon fans can grouse about Nebraska's selection for the national, but the Ducks gained little from the newest component to the BCS formula -- quality wins. The collapse of UCLA and Washington State left the Ducks with only a .04 bonus as compared to the 2.3 earned by Colorado. Combined with their weak strength of schedule rating, and Oregon is headed to Tempe.
The Buffs of Colorado have reason to be upset with the final BCS outcome. They beat Nebraska and then went out the following week and took care of Texas in the Dr. Pepper Big 12 Championship game. Granted, they carried two losses -- one from Fresno State in the first game of the season -- and a regular season conference loss to the Longhorns, which they avenged with their win in Dallas, but they are the Big 12 champs and will watch as a team they beat and did not play in its conference title game plays for a national championship.
Colorado and Oregon can still play at the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl for what possibly could be a share of the national championship. We tend to forget that the Rose Bowl winner receives the ESPN/USA Today Coaches' Poll anointing as college football' s best. The Associated Press has always reserved the right to name its own national champion. Granted the Fiesta winner won't have the Waterford Crystal Football that is the Sears Trophy for their Trophy case, but the AP's national championship trophy isn't all that shabby.
The other BCS matchups are where this final BCS posting makes for some interesting arguments, for and against conference title games.
LSU gets a Nokia Sugar Bowl berth as the SEC champ. The Tigers' opponent, Illinois, did not have to play in a conference championship. Instead, they take their 10-1 record to New Orleans as the only BCS representative from the Big Ten. But the Fighting Illini are eighth in the final BCS and both Texas and Tennessee are ranked higher. Maryland goes to the FedEx Orange Bowl, and the Terrapins too trail the Vols and the Longhorns.
But LSU will face Illinois and Maryland will get Florida in Miami. Texas and Tennessee, who both played for their conference championship and at the time of their defeat were "fast tracked" for Pasadena, miss out entirely on the BCS celebration and the $13 million payout.
Is the BCS system in need of some additional tweaking? The answer is possibly yes. Some consideration should be given to requiring a conference title in order to play for the national championship. If not, then the conference tie-ins with the BCS bowls should be looked at. But before we start the annual call for the dismantling of the BCS, let's remember that before the BCS, many of the bowl matchups would have been set long before the series of upsets over the last couple of weeks turned the race to Pasadena upside down.
A playoff would be nice, but as long as there is continued reluctance on the part of school presidents to initiate a playoff system, we must abide by the system. Miami Hurricane head coach Larry Coker knows both the good and the bad of the BCS. As an assistant coach last season, he took the Hurricanes to New Orleans hoping to make a statement about their snub in last year's selection of Florida State for the national championship. This season, he replaces Butch Davis and will face Nebraska in the Rose Bowl with a Hurricane team that has yet to be defeated in 2001.
"I'm not one to advocate changing things at mid-stream," said Coker. "The BCS was the parameter that all of us agreed to for selecting the national championship."
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