Symphony for BCS: a 1 and a 2 ...

So it’s all set.

The champion of the Big 12 Conference will play USC for the national championship in one of the most anticipated matchups in years.

The Big 12 champion will be talked about as possibly one of the greatest teams in the history of college football.

Just like last season.

Well, Texas hopes not.

Last season, Oklahoma won the Big 12 but lost the Big Orange, 55-19.

To paraphrase Texan Lloyd Bentsen, though, “We’ve seen Texas, Texas is a friend of ours. Oklahoma, you are no Texas.”

Proving anything can go right every once in a while, even in the befuddling bowl championship series, the two best teams are meeting for this year’s national title game.

It’s No. 1 USC against No. 2 Texas and, for once, there should be no shouting matches or fist fights, unless you want to compare this to Ali-Frazier.

“I saw they were winning big just like we did,” USC’s Frostee Rucker said of Texas. “They’ve been outstanding week in and week out. We’re going to give people the game they wanted.”

In terms of defining the national title talking points, well, Saturday was a demarcation zone.

USC knocked “archrival” UCLA so far out of town the Bruins are now headquartered in Eastwood.

In a 70-3 victory over Colorado, the Texas offense scored on nine of its first 10 possessions.

USC had 679 total yards; Texas had 486.

The Rose Bowl could be 41-40 -- at the half.

Isn’t it kind of, sort of, nice?

There is:

* No Auburn to muddle the picture by going 13-0 after its bowl win and then announcing the head coach was ordering national title rings no matter what the BCS says.

* No Rose Bowl bickering involving California and the Associated Press.

* No replay of 2003, when USC finished No. 1 in both polls but No. 3 in the BCS.

* No repeat of 2001, when Nebraska entered the Rose Bowl fresh off its 62-36 loss to Colorado, and Oregon, which had been ranked No. 2 in both polls, finished fourth in the BCS.

Any season in the BCS that ends without pickets in front of the factory has to be considered a success.

The most relieved man in Reliant Stadium other than Texas Coach Mack Brown, who won his first conference title in 22 years as a head coach, may have been BCS spokesman Bob Burda.

Now he won’t have to explain how an undefeated team or multiple one-loss teams got “jobbed” out of a national title picture.

“When it’s clear-cut like this, it’s reaffirmation that the system works,” Burda said.

Whoa there, hoss, not so fast. There is a count-your-blessings factor to be considered.

Had Michigan not defeated Penn State on the game’s last play, Penn State would be undefeated and this year’s three’s-a-crowd intruder.

And let there be no doubt: Penn State would have finished undefeated and third behind USC and Texas in the final BCS standings.

And the Nittany Lions, as they did in 1994, could have finished undefeated with no national title trophy to show for it.

But it didn’t break that way, and sports talk radio will be a lot quieter now.

It was a near-perfect day for the BCS:

* Texas’ victory now frees the Fiesta Bowl to select Notre Dame today with the at-large pick it gets for losing the Longhorns to the Rose Bowl.

The Orange Bowl will then pick Penn State and because of Saturday losses by BCS No. 4 Louisiana State and No. 5 Virginia Tech the Fiesta Bowl now does not have to choose between Oregon or Ohio State. How’s that? Barring the highly unforeseen, Ohio State, Oregon and Notre Dame will move up to the Nos. 4, 5 and 6 spots in the final BCS standings.

That means Ohio State is a “must take” at-large pick. Notre Dame, as an independent, gets the other automatic bid because it finished No. 6 or better.

Unless Oregon somehow miraculously jumps Ohio State in the computer, the Ducks are this year’s Cal at No. 5.

The Fiesta Bowl was relieved Saturday night when it realized it did not have to choose between Oregon and Ohio State. “It’s not fun,” spokesman Shawn Schoeffler said of the decision-making process. “It’s really

not.”

* Four-loss Florida State upset Virginia Tech to win the Atlantic Coast title, but that was actually good news for the Orange Bowl because it gets to match Penn State’s Joe Paterno against Florida State’s Bobby Bowden, the two winningest coaches in major college football history.

* And the Sugar Bowl gets West Virginia vs. Georgia in a game that was moved from New Orleans to Atlanta because of Hurricane Katrina.

We now have a month to anticipate and articulate USC vs. Texas, Reggie Bush vs. Vince Young, “Conquest” vs. “The Eyes of Texas.”

This can’t possibly be a repeat of last year’s Orange Bowl, could it?

Texas is light-years better than the Oklahoma team that went south in South Beach.

Texas has the speed to match USC. It has the defense, the quarterback and special teams.

Texas has scored 50 or more points in seven games this year. The Longhorns, not the Trojans, lead the nation in scoring and lopsided wins.

After eight years of huge success mixed with heartbreak, Mack Brown has Texas on the Pasadena precipice.

He could have gotten to the 2001 national title game at the Rose Bowl with a win over Colorado, but Texas probably wasn’t ready for Miami then.

Maybe they are ready for USC now.

“Texas is a factor,” Brown declared Saturday in the bowels of Reliant Stadium. “When you get to the end and don’t finish it like you want to, it’s really disappointing, but you can feel as a coach how close you are, and last year we took a big jump.”

This year Texas is looking for the giant leap.

Times staff writer Robyn Norwood contributed to this report.

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Breaking down the bowls

A look at the probable bowl championship series lineup and where UCLA is expected to play. The official announcement will be today:

*--* BOWL Date/Time Site Matchup FIESTA Jan. 2, 1:30 p.m. Tempe, Ariz. Notre Dame vs. Ohio State SUGAR Jan. 2, 5 p.m. Atlanta Georgia vs. West Virginia ORANGE Jan. 3, 5 p.m. Miami Penn State vs. Florida State ROSE Jan. 4, 5 p.m. Pasadena USC vs. Texas

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OTHER

*--* SUN Dec. 30, 11 a.m. El Paso UCLA vs. Northwestern

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