BCS

So . . . how does a USC-Hawai'i Fiesta Bowl grab you?

A Kansas-West Virginia National Championship game?

Today was just the latest in the craziest college football season in memory.

Consider:

*Two dramatic, BCS-affecting upsets (Arkansas over LSU, Texas A&M over Texas), one of them in a rivalry game, and both winning coaches (one for sure, the other almost certainly) headed out the door in dual jump-or-be-pushed scenarios, both of said coaches are involved in separate off-the-field kerfuffles best described, both of them, as bizarre.

*The team with the second-to-easiest schedule in the country plays the team with the third-to-easiest schedule in the country--and the game has major BCS implications.

*Kansas--at this moment in time--is essentially the number one team in the country, and yet no one gives it any chance at all to survive the next eight days with more than the Orange or Sugar Bowl as a consolation prize. Probably correctly.

*Three years ago, Cal, with one loss (and that by six points, on the road, to the undefeated Leinart/Bush/Lendale/Tatupu/Cody/Jarrett Trojans) was left out of the BCS in favor of the Vince Young/Cedric Benson Longhorns, who themselves had one loss (by twelve points, on a neutral site, to the Jason White/Adrian Peterson Sooners). Now teams with two or three losses (a considerably not-as-good Trojans team, first and foremost) find themselves in the catbird seat, and little seems to stand between Hawai'i (which played a weaker schedule than Odessa Permian) and a fat New Year's payday. Yes: the extra BCS game is a factor. However, between 2001 and 2005--a five-year span--we were treated to four BCS Championship games featuring two undefeated teams from major conferences, and in one case an undefeated from a top-tier conference (Auburn, 2004), on the outside looking in, and probably incorrectly. (Would Auburn have fared better against USC than 55-19? Probably.)

The moral? The era of the super-team is on hold. In 2004 we spent four months waiting for USC-Oklahoma; likewise in 2005 with USC-Texas. This year? Does Kansas-West Virginia grab you? Missouri-Ohio State? Brother.

*As for USC-ASU. In Sun Devil Stadium yesterday, enjoying my Thanksgiving dinner out behind Packard Stadium (my brother's father-in-law brought the game he'd shot: pheasant, grouse, and so forth), I reached an inner peace about the whole affair. Strange how my mood seems to affect USC games. 2002 against Notre Dame and (in the Orange Bowl) Iowa, I was quietly confident. Two blowouts. 2003: the Rose Bowl. Quietly confident, USC whallops Michigan. 2004: Oklahoma, a kind of "well, let's see what happens" attitude. Result? 55-19. 2005: Absolute, infinite, obsessive insanity from about Labor Day on, as I realize USC and Texas are headed for a collision course. Result? The Vince Bowl.

Last year: the Rose Bowl. Even keel. USC blowout.

So: my lesson learned. Even keel is good luck. So: yesterday, I went with my Sun Devil family to enjoy my repast, the gorgeous weather, and see what happened.

Then USC took the kickoff, marched smartly down the field and scored.

And I knew the game was over. I knew the game was over because finally, finally the team that we might term the post-Jarrett era was hitting on all cylinders and playing the way their press clippings claimed they would play.

To look over the season. Idaho State was basically a scrimmage. Nebraska (a far worse team than we thought) was won when Carroll simply abandoned the passing game altogether, and rammed the ball down the Blackshirts' throats. Then the injuries piled up, complacency set in; the Stanford game (or something like it) was inevitable. Arizona was close. Notre Dame: next.

In the end, Oregon was an unfortunate happenstance, a loss against a better team, a hard pill to swallow, as it represented the end of USC hegemony lasting all the way back to the fifth game of 2002.

And then? The Cal game might have been the fulcrum, the game that saved the Trojans from (ick) El Paso. And then there was last night, with some crucial pieces (COUGHsambakerCOUGH) back in play. At 7-0, it was over. At 7-7 (with the fluke of a kickoff runback) it was over. Booty had all the time in the world, and Carpenter didn't. And that was your ballgame.