In Orange Bowl, It Will Be USC And Oklahoma

Auburn Is the Odd Team Out Despite 12-0 Record, SEC Title

Coach Jeff Tedford is "very, very disappointed" that Cal was excluded from a BCS bowl. (Rogelio Solis -- AP)

Southern California and Oklahoma finished the college football season exactly where they began -- as the No. 1 and 2 teams in the land, according to the Bowl Championship Series -- and will play for the national title in the Jan. 4 Orange Bowl. But that was about the only tidy aspect of the final BCS standings, which once again left bruised feelings and bewilderment in its wake as the pairings for the four major bowls were unveiled yesterday.

Like USC and Oklahoma, Auburn finished 12-0. It won the Southeastern Conference title, as well, but was overlooked for the championship game. The Tigers will head to New Orleans to face ACC champion Virginia Tech in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 3. Coach Tommy Tuberville can only hope that a dominant showing there will stake a claim for his Tigers getting a share of the national title.

"In any conference, you go undefeated and win your championship game, it's pretty hard to explain to your players and fans and coaches that you don't have a chance to play for it all because you can't do any more," Tuberville said in a conference call last night. "It's inconceivable that you would go twelve and 0h and not have a chance."

California was shut out of a BCS bowl altogether despite its only loss coming at the hands of top-ranked Southern California. Texas vaulted ahead of California to finish fourth in the final BCS standings and clinch the sole remaining at-large spot.

In doing so, Texas bumped California out of the Rose Bowl, denying college football's oldest bowl game its traditional Pacific-10/Big Ten matchup. The Longhorns (10-1) make their Rose Bowl debut against Big Ten champions Michigan (9-2).

As expected, Utah made history by becoming the first team from a mid-major conference to earn a BCS bowl bid, finishing sixth in the standings. The Utes (11-0) were selected by Fiesta Bowl officials, who expect a large and fervent following to make the trip from Salt Lake City to Tempe, Ariz.

Their opponent will be Big East champion Pittsburgh, widely viewed as the weak link in the pairings. Pittsburgh earned its Fiesta Bowl spot despite an 8-3 record and 21st ranking in the final standings because the Big East champion is guaranteed a berth in one of the lucrative BCS bowls.

While fans of Auburn and California have plenty to moan about, BCS analyst Jerry Palm was more troubled by the fact that the Big East has kept its automatic bid despite the defection of Virginia Tech and Miami, which diluted the league's quality of play.

"The thing that is unjust and unfair is that the Big East in its weakened form still has an automatic bid," Palm said. "That's not the way the Big East was when all these contracts were signed."

Just how long the Big East will keep that automatic bid, which is worth $14 million to the conference this year, is among the topics BCS officials plan to review this spring. But it's just one of several issues sure to be debated, and perhaps tweaked, as conference commissioners tinker with their much-maligned construct for determining a national champion.

Said BCS Coordinator Kevin Weiberg, who is also commissioner of the Big 12, "The bottom line here is whatever formula we have at the end of the day is probably one that will receive significant criticism in one way, shape or form."

BCS officials simplified their formula for ranking teams after last year's standings failed to produce a consensus national champion. This season, the opinions of humans carried more weight than those of computers, with the weekly polls of college coaches and writers each accounting for one-third the total. The final third reflected the average of six computer rankings.

Yet in California's case, computers proved the Bears' undoing. Cal finished fourth in both human polls but was dragged down by its sixth-place finish by the computers, which deemed its schedule weaker than that of Texas. Cal also hurt itself by struggling more than expected against its final opponent, Southern Mississippi, on Saturday. Cal entered the game needing a convincing win to maintain its edge over Texas, and its 26-16 victory wasn't enough.

"We're obviously very, very disappointed," Cal Coach Jeff Tedford said on ABC's selection show. "If you have to go in and totally blow people out, I don't think that serves the integrity of the game."

Southern Cal Coach Pete Carroll also took issue with the outcome.

"I don't see how that could have happened," Carroll said of Cal's slide in the standings. "They played really well all year long. They had a great season. They gave us a great game. For them to fall for some reason -- I don't get it because they didn't do anything to take a step backward as the season went on."

As a member of the Pacific-10, Carroll and USC are affected by Cal's absence from the BCS. Had the Pac-10 placed two teams in the major bowl, its payout would have been $18.5 million instead of $14 million (the payout for one team). With Texas getting the final at-large spot instead, the Big 12 will collect the additional $4.5 million.

Virginia Tech's Frank Beamer came to Auburn's defense, saying he felt the Tigers belonged in the national title game and revealing on a conference call that he had voted them No. 2 for the past five weeks. "Any time you go through the season undefeated and win a championship game in that league, you deserve to play for the national championship," Beamer said.

Weiberg said he favored doing away with preseason rankings, which handicapped Auburn this year, and delaying the first polls until three or four weeks into the season. Such suggestions have been rebuffed in the past, but will likely be raised again this spring.