At This Rate, No. 2 May Be One Who Cries Harder

Break out the sandwich boards because it is election season in college football.

From the USC camp: “Stamp out Swamp Thing!”

From Florida’s headquarters: “USC is all about Pete ... Moss.”

The race is on, not for No. 1, but for No. 2.

This much we know: Ohio State, if it wins out, will play for the national title. The coronation would come Nov. 18 with a home win against Michigan, after which the Buckeyes would take 51 days off before the Jan. 8 title game in Phoenix’s outskirts.

The fight for No. 2, though, might produce a call from Jerry Springer’s talent booker.

USC, taken to the Alex Brink by Washington State last week and then forced to pull out a clockwork-orange win against Washington, held on to the No. 2 spot Sunday in both the Harris and USA Today polls.

Associated Press voters, responding to then-No. 2 Auburn’s loss, jumped Florida from No. 5 to No. 2, catapulting the Gators over USC and West Virginia.

The AP, though, is no longer a part of the Bowl Championship Series formula, so what does any of that mean?

Expect the shout-a-thon to get louder as USC and Florida keep winning.

Also take careful note of the agendas out there.

* CBS televises the Southeastern Conference, so from now until the last SEC team loses four times, expect a steady diet of on-air campaigning on behalf of the conference for which it sells commercial time.

CBS is good at this. Remember 1997, when No. 1 Michigan thought it had clinched both shares of the national title by winning the Rose Bowl only to watch CBS, which had Tennessee vs. No. 2 Nebraska, turn the Orange Bowl into a national title game by flag-waving for Tom Osborne’s final team?

* ABC: It’s confusing, we know, but just remember the greatest team of all time and this year’s Heisman Trophy winner are not always involved in the game Brent Musburger is announcing.

* Fox cable: It leans left (coast) because of its affiliation with the Pacific 10, but may not be reaching enough hotel rooms east of the Mississippi to affect USC’s Southern Strategy.

* NBC: It’s the network of Notre Dame, so look out if the No. 2 spot becomes a battle of one-loss teams and one of them is coached by Charlie Weis.

* ESPN: The straw that stirs the drink. When Kirk and Lee say Florida is the second-best team on any given Saturday night, it can sometimes lead to Florida’s jumping over two undefeated teams in the next day’s AP poll.

The potential USC-Florida argument could be as dicey as any we’ve seen.

How could you play the weak-schedule card against USC if the Trojans went 12-0 with nonconference wins over Arkansas (4-1), Nebraska (5-1) and Notre Dame (5-1) and a sweep of the conference that last week was ranked No. 1 by Jeff Sagarin’s computer?

How could you deny 13-0 Florida if the Gators ran the table in the SEC, beat Florida State, then earned a bonus cookie by winning the SEC title game?

There will be strong arguments on both sides -- and don’t be surprised if Lee Corso argues both of them.

Of course, USC could lose to Arizona State next week and Florida could lose at Auburn, and then we’d have to welcome in West Virginia.

Best advice for all coaches and players involved? Just shut up and play.

Leave October politics to the experts and the sportswriters.

It wasn’t long ago that Texas Christian Coach Gary Patterson, after a rousing 12-3 win over Texas Tech, announced he was tired of his program’s being treated like “a stepchild.”

TCU has lost two games since -- in the state of Utah.

Auburn fretted about being shut of the BCS again when it should have been worried about being shut out by Arkansas.

Just play. There will come a time when pleading your case will get you somewhere. Who could forget two years ago, in the heat of the Texas-California Rose Bowl debate, when Mack Brown saved his best stump speech for last?

The first BCS standings will be released next Sunday.

Weekend Wrap

* Moveon.org: Losses by Oklahoma and Oregon greatly diminish the chance that last month’s officiating fiasco in Eugene will have a major impact on the BCS.

* Recovery programs. Lose your first game and the season’s over? It happens to some teams, but not to California, Arkansas and Georgia Tech. All three have recovered from toe stubs to make life miserable for others.

Cal has scored 40 or more points in five straight wins since losing to Tennessee, and has climbed back to No. 11 in both BCS polls after starting the pre-season at No. 9.

Arkansas looked hapless in a 50-14 loss to USC but has since won four games, including Saturday’s shocker at Auburn. With the win, Arkansas cracked the top 25, zooming all the way to No. 17 in the AP. Georgia Tech, which lost its home opener to Notre Dame, has won five straight and is posting as high as No. 13.

Cal Coach Jeff Tedford said the Tennessee loss may have actually been a wake-up call. “At Tennessee, anything that could have gone wrong did,” Tedford said. “But that wasn’t really us out there. Our kids never lost their concentration or focus. They always knew what they were capable of.”

* More on Cal: Losing its first game may have been a good thing. The Bears lost their first game each of the last two times they won the conference championship, in 1975 and 1958.

* Yuck department: Stanford is off to its first 0-6 start since 1983. In six losses, the Cardinal has been outscored, 218 to 73. Stanford has scored nine touchdowns to its opponents’ 28. The Cardinal has been outscored 117 to 23 in the second half. San Diego State (0-5) matched its worst start in school history; Duke extended its nation-leading losing streak to 13 games.

* Good when they’re ahead. The Missouri Tigers, 6-0 after beating Texas A&M;, have not trailed this season.

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chris.dufresne@latimes.com