BCS games no help for plagued USC fans

Another BCS game, another reason for Trojans fans to bury their heads in their hands.

At this point, after three years of what if, USC fans would almost rather point at the national champion and say, "Damn good team. You deserve it."

After all, such a statement would relieve them of the constant belief that their team is, in fact, the real No. 1. Sounds like a petty burden to most, but three years of Big Ten-bashing, BCS-stifling Januaries can drive a man insane.

Tonight's Ohio State-Texas matchup solidified the notion that whoever wins the so-called BCS National Championship Game can't honestly claim to be the no-buts-about-it national champion.

And thus, the USC fan's anxiety lives to see another year.

Ohio State ran all over the Longhorns to the tune of 200+ rushing yards. This was a Buckeyes offense, mind you, that looked downright awful against USC and Penn State during the regular season.

Still, QB Terrelle Pryor couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a pass, and RB Beanie Wells sat out most of the game's crucial minutes. Yet, there the Buckeyes were, scoring two fourth-quarter touchdowns in what should have been an impressive comeback victory.

Nevermind that Texas scored in the final minute to win. Nobody will say Texas should be voted No. 1 anymore. Not when it struggled mightily against an OSU team that lost 35-3 to USC and 13-6 to Penn State (at home).

It was also a Texas team that played the creamiest of cream puff non-conference schedules, lost to Texas Tech and barely beat Oklahoma State - the latter two games involving teams which were exposed in the season's final month.

And I don't even need to get into Alabama. The 'Tide were softer than the Charmin baby's butt in their embarrassing BCS loss to Utah.

But the headline is bigger than No. 4 losing and No. 3 looking terribly vulnerable.

The headline is that No. 1 and No. 2 are ranked as such because of No. 3 and No. 4.

Florida's only truly impressive opponent was Alabama. Or so we thought.

Oklahoma was judged to have a better resume than Texas. How 'bout that Longhorns resume now?

Florida and Oklahoma are deserving football teams, don't get me wrong, but if the final BCS vote were held today, well...

Let's just say USC fans might not have to live in such agony. (That is, of course, unless Utah stepped in, which would be all too fitting.)

And if the basic arguments aren't enough, consider some more facts:

USC thrashed Penn State, 38-24. Penn State dominated 9-4 Oregon State, and its only loss was by one point to Iowa, which won six of its final seven games, smucked South Carolina in its bowl game, and lost four games by a combined 11 points.

USC embarrassed Ohio State, 35-3. Texas made the Buckeyes offensive attack (yes, even without Beanie Wells) look downright bullish.

USC beat Oregon 44-10. This is the same Ducks team that scored 162 points in its final three games against bowl winners Arizona and Oregon State, and a supposedly reputable Oklahoma State. Oregon's three losses were to Boise State, USC and Cal, which will all finish the season ranked. The latter two games were on the road.

USC's schedule included seven bowl teams, five ranked teams at season's end and five bowl winners (should have been six, Ohio State).

USC won the Pac-10 - the conference with the best bowl record
(5-0). The Pac-10 bowl teams beat four other ranked teams plus Miami.

And lastly, USC lost to Oregon State, which lost to eventual top-15 teams Utah (13-0), Oregon (10-3) and Penn State (11-2). Its only bad loss was to Stanford (5-7), and that was in August.

In case you missed it (which you probably did), the week after the Beavers took down USC, they held an 11-point lead with less than two minutes to go on the road against Utah. Had they beaten the Utes, the Trojans might still be waiting to play their bowl game.

I'm the Daily Trojan sportswriter most critical of USC, but when the facts are there, the facts are there.

At the very least, this year's BCS might save USC fans from repeat agony next season. Until then, they can look at this picture of Stanford receiver Mark Bradford and cry themselves to sleep.

Pac-10 goes 5-0. Universal finger pointing begins.

I told you so.

Media says, "Perhaps it was the media's fault." Note the use of "media" rather than "my."

USC, Cal and Oregon State: 16-3 since 2002 in bowl games.

And the Pac-10's annual battle against perception commences...

The Pac-10 has not had a losing bowl season since 2002. For the math deficient, that's 5-straight .500 or better postseasons.

For a league almost universally perceived as weak, that's not bad.

But it's not good enough, either.

No, for the only BCS conference to test itself in preseason games and then play a true regular season round robin (the Big East doesn't count as BCS), nothing seems to be good enough.

It's USC and the nine step-sisters.

High-octane offenses and single-gear defenses.

The domain of Washington and Washington State.

Everyone has an opinion, but as is normally the case with East Coast-based criticisms of West Coast teams, the opinions are rarely substantiated.

And they don't need to be - networks and writers know that most of the country will agree with them.

Arizona began the Pac-10's 2008 postseason tonight by soundly beating No. 17 BYU, 31-21. For any knowledgable football fan, the result was no surprise. I'm sure Vegas odds-makers, who had the 'Cats at -3, were salivating at the fact that enough fans out there thought the Cougars were the better team.

BYU got clobbered by its two strongest opponents, Utah and TCU, and were an absurdly terrible officiating call away from going into overtime against now infamously 0-12 Washington.

Arizona, on the other hand, finished 7-5 in a deeper conference after losing to the Pac-10's three top teams by 7, 10 and 2, respectively. Oh yeah, Arizona has a better quaterback and a tougher defense, too.

Hmm.

So it goes for the Pac-10. At worst, the league should go 4-1 in its five bowl games this year, and it has a great shot at going 5-0. There's no doubt the conference's bottom tier (UW, WSU, ASU, UCLA) was down this year, but why should that mean the Pac-10 as a whole is subpar?

You'd think 4-1 or 5-0 would be enough to raise perceptions of the league to the point where more teams would populate the 2009 preseason poll.

You'd think so. But if five-straight years haven't done the trick, maybe logic just doesn't play a leading role.