BCS mess may leave Tigers without a title

It’s difficult to criticize something that has become Pitt’s best friend — the Bowl… It’s difficult to criticize something that has become Pitt’s best friend — the Bowl Championship Series.

But I think it will be tougher for Tommy Tuberville to have to tell his football team, which needs only one win to finish undefeated, that playing for a national championship is unlikely.

Auburn, right now, is on the outside looking in at the title game, which pairs the top two teams as ranked by the BCS. Odds are that the team will not receive an invite to play in the Orange Bowl primarily because of the BCS, which is supposed to help determine each year’s national champion.

If only it actually did that.

The Tigers (11-0) currently sit third in every poll, including the BCS rankings, behind USC (11-0) and Oklahoma (11-0). They will need either the Trojans or the Sooners to lose their final game to get into the title game.

The BCS has itself in a predicament here, especially after what happened in 2003. The system was created to prevent split-national championships from happening, the last of which came in 1997 when Nebraska and Michigan both completed perfect seasons and shared the championship.

Well, it actually wasn’t the last.

Last season, USC and LSU shared the national title after the BCS paired Oklahoma and LSU in its title game, even though USC headed the Associated Press poll. LSU won the game, but USC stayed at the top of the AP, so they ended up sharing the championship, even though the Trojans were left out of the final game.

What was the BCS created for, again?

There won’t be a split national champion this year, since Auburn is No. 3 in all polls, but the idea of an unbeaten from a major conference being left out of the championship is an unfortunate one for both the team and the sport.

I know that what everybody wants is a playoff for college football, and I would love to see it. You can always whittle it down to no more than four teams deserving of a shot at the national championship. A four-team playoff is fair and very feasible.

Unfortunately, the NCAA does not seem to be headed down this road. Despite the recent controversy and the fact that the BCS flat out did not work last season, there does not appear to be a playoff system in the near future for college football.

There is, however, one thing that the sport could do to help the process: eliminate preseason rankings. If the first polls didn’t come out until teams had already played four or five games, it would be easier to sift through the mess.

USC, the top-ranked team in the preseason, has retained the No. 1 spot all season, and no matter how close their final game against UCLA may be, they will not drop so long as they win. Coaches and sports writers hate to drop undefeated teams this late in the season, which is a fair and reasonable practice.

But I wonder what the rankings would look like had USC not started the season atop the polls. They have had a few close calls this season, beating California — who outplayed the Trojans — by six and having to rally to edge Stanford, a team that just fired its coach, 31-28.

Oklahoma has also had its share of close contests. A 42-35 victory over Texas A’M, a three-point win over rival Oklahoma State and a 31-21 comeback win over Kansas State have shown that Oklahoma is not invincible.

Auburn didn’t play a tough non-conference schedule, which has hurt their BCS computer ranking. But with how well the Tigers have played in the very tough Southeastern Conference, they could easily be in a different position than the one they are in now.

USC and Oklahoma are essentially guaranteed a spot in the title game because of where they were ranked before the season started. Both have played very well all season in their games, but so has Auburn.

Later rankings would let all of the voters see the teams they are ranking before actually putting them in these spots. Pre-season rankings, particularly at the top, actually mean something in college football, as USC is showing this season. Auburn started the year No. 18 and could possibly go undefeated, but finish no higher than second.

Sunday, the final BCS rankings come out, and many of us will gather and celebrate Pitt’s probable BCS berth. Tuberville will probably be gathering with his team, preparing them for a bitter end to an otherwise sweet season.

Geoff Dutelle is the assistant sports editor of The Pitt News and hopes that there is a playoff in college football’s future so that the BS can be taken out of the BCS. E-mail him at gmd8@pitt.edu.