In the Scramble for No. 1, ABC Will Get a Twofer

Crush the computers for kindling. Stoke the sparks with keyboard and mouse. Throw another algorithm on the fire and gather ‘round the hearth for a heartwarming holiday mystery tale of who won the Great BCS Swindle of 2003.

Was it Oklahoma? The Sooners lost their conference final by four touchdowns to a three-loss opponent, and they still get to play in the national championship game. What a system! What a country!

Could it be the Rose Bowl? The Old Granddaddy, gone cranky in recent years about these kids today and their lack of respect for tradition, was seen dabbing away misty-eyed memories of John McKay and Bo Schembechler as it laid out the table for the old-school matchup of its dreams, No. 1 USC against No. 4 Michigan.

How about the college football publicity machine? ESPN, after spending a week hyping the NFL’s “Showdown Sunday” and Michael Vick’s first start of the season (live on ESPN!), led its Sunday “SportsCenter” with a story about college football and the BCS controversy. NCAA 1, NFL 0 -- and, rest assured, the NCAA keeps track of such things.

Good guesses. But they are all runners-up to the biggest beneficiary of the latest BCS meltdown: the television network that will broadcast No. 2 LSU against No. 3 Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl’s “BCS Championship Game” on Jan. 4, three days after broadcasting top-ranked USC against Michigan in the Rose Bowl.

ABC has both games.

Championship Games 1 and 1A.

Potential advertising slogan to carry ABC from here to January: “Two title games for the price of one.”

“I like that,” said Loren Matthews, ABC Sports’ senior vice president of programming.

It’s not quite the way ABC would have mapped it out. Oklahoma-USC was the network’s preferred Sugar Bowl matchup -- one Matthews fully expected to book after Saturday’s Big 12 Conference final between Oklahoma and Kansas State.

“I think the game that most people were anticipating seeing would have been an undefeated Oklahoma versus USC,” Matthews said.

“I think when I headed out to the Big 12 championship this past weekend, that is the game that I assumed we would have in the Nokia Sugar Bowl, and I think most college football fans, if they could have voted, would have voted for.”

But Oklahoma lost, 35-7, and by the time all the Sooners and dominoes had toppled, a computer formula had thrown a fork in the road to the national championship, sending Oklahoma and Southeastern Conference champion Louisiana State to New Orleans and keeping USC, ranked No. 1 in the coaches’ and writers’ polls, in Pasadena.

A split championship is there to be had. USC Coach Pete Carroll went on ABC on Sunday to say his Trojans will be playing for the national championship in the Rose Bowl. If Carroll wants to think that, and millions of college football fans decide to climb onboard with him, who is ABC to try to stop them?

“We are the network of the BCS, and we’ll consider the national champion to be the winner of the Nokia Sugar Bowl,” Matthews said. “[But] believe me, USC has every right, should they beat Michigan, to claim a share of the national championship.

“I mean, they’re a wonderful team. They were No. 1 in both polls. This is not a situation anyone is thrilled to see happen, it’s just that’s the way the rules are and we play by the rules.... But if there are people out there who think that an equally important game is the Rose Bowl because it has USC, which was ranked No. 1 in both polls, we hope they’re watching. I’m sure they will be.”

If you match up ABC’s broadcasting teams, the Rose Bowl is getting the bigger-game treatment.

USC and Michigan get Keith Jackson and Dan Fouts.

LSU and Oklahoma get Brent Musburger and Gary Danielson.

“That makes everybody happy,” Matthews said of the Jackson-Rose Bowl pairing.

“Keith was not scheduled to do [last season’s] national championship game because we were in a rotation situation. But then we moved one of our crews to the NFL playoff games, the Musburger-Danielson crew, which was scheduled to do last year’s championship game, and will do this year’s. So Keith got the call. We asked Keith to call the game in Phoenix.

“And, of course, that turned out to be as good a championship game as you’ll ever have. It’s sort of a kick to have the all-time voice of college football call a game that great.

“Well, he isn’t scheduled to do the championship game this year, and look what drops in his lap -- Game 1-A. Good for him, good for us, good for viewers.”

The prospect of a split championship has kept the sports talk shows buzzing with every piece of tweak-this advice imaginable. For example, it has been asked: What’s to stop ABC from taking the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl winners, going outside the BCS contract and staging its own winner-take-all one-off?

“I think little things, like NCAA rules,” Matthews said with a laugh. “You have to be sanctioned games. We can’t just say, ‘Why don’t you come over to my house today, you 178 guys, and bring your uniforms with you?’ I couldn’t sit here and give you chapter and verse on which NCAA rules that would violate ... but I promise you, we’d be violating several.

“First off, the postseason bowl committee has to sanction all bowl games anyway. There are very definite rules and regulations about when a football season can start, when it ends, who’s eligible for a bowl, who isn’t. And, of course, call me silly, but they’re student-athletes.”

Matthews said ABC is just “playing the hand we’re dealt. And it’s not the worst hand in the world. There’s a couple of aces in there....

“If there’s going to be a championship game 1 and 1A, I’m real happy they’re both on ABC.”