Heisman Voters Might Clock Out the West Coast

Once again, the night owl partnership involving the Pacific 10 Conference and Fox television nailed the insomniac demographic.

USC tailback Reggie Bush’s 513-yard virtuoso performance against Fresno State on Saturday night -- Sunday morning in the East, breakfast time in London -- left breathless those who witnessed it and livid those who ran out of truck stop coffee.

In terms of the Heisman Trophy, Bush is believed to have locked up the lighthouse operator/doughnut-maker voting bloc.

Meanwhile, elsewhere ...

Tony Barnhart, national college football columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, said he conked out on his couch after USC went ahead, 41-28, only to be shocked by the morning news that USC later trailed, 42-41, before winning, 50-42.

“Reggie Bush had a game for the ages,” Barnhart said Sunday, “and seven people saw it.”

The game was scheduled to start at 7:15 Pacific time but didn’t kick off until about 7:25. It ended at 2:15 a.m. in the East.

Several Heisman Trophy voters who covered the Penn State-Michigan State game in East Lansing, Mich., scrambled to find a place to watch the end of USC-Fresno State on the Fox Sports Network.

Mark Blaudschun of the Boston Globe said his group got word the Westin Hotel at the Detroit airport carried Fox, but turns out it had “Fox News,” not the regional channel that broadcast the game.

“What are we going to do?” Blaudschun wondered.

The writers ended up finding a sports bar in Romulus, Mich., persuading ownership to let them stay past closing time to watch the game’s conclusion.

“They stopped serving us,” Blaudschun said, “but they didn’t throw us out.”

Is this any way to mount a Heisman Trophy campaign?

At issue again is whether the Pac-10’s insistence on playing late-night games at the expense of East Coast audiences will hurt a Left Coast player’s chances of winning the Heisman Trophy.

Before weekend play, Bush was trailing Texas quarterback Vince Young in most informal straw polls.

And although it’s true that USC players Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart have won two of the last three Heismans, neither of those guys had to play this late to the Denny’s crowd.

And what if Bush loses the Heisman because not enough people saw his incredible game?

“Tough ... “ Blaudschun said. “The Pac-10 complains about East Coast bias. It’s not bias, we just don’t know about it!”

Reached at home Sunday, Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen defended the conference’s television package and said it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Bush is a special player.

“Our only crime, it seems, is our night is three hours later than their night,” Hansen said. “That’s just the way the clock works.”

Hansen said the conference has to play late games on the West Coast to get three television time slots in one day. And, unlike in the East, the Pac-10 cannot start games at 9 a.m. on the West Coast.

Hansen said he is bothered that many bars and hotels east of the Rockies still do not yet carry Fox regional networks.

“That’s a legitimate point,” Hansen said, “And we’ve pressed them on that all the time we’ve been with them.”

Barnhart guessed that Bush’s numbers against Fresno State were so extraordinary that the late-night factor would not hurt him in the Heisman race.

“Reggie Bush is like Herschel Walker,” Barnhart said of the former All-American Georgia tailback. “He’s a generational player.”

The good news is that Bush’s next scheduled performance, in two weeks against UCLA, is a 1:30 kickoff in the Coliseum.

Imagine that, a Pac-10 game in broad daylight.

Weekend Wrap

There is a potential war developing between 10-1 Oregon and 9-2 Ohio State over one of two bowl championship series at-large berths.

Here’s the scenario, assuming USC and Texas play for the national title in the Jan. 4 Rose Bowl. Notre Dame will earn one of the at-large bids if it beats Stanford this weekend in Palo Alto. The Fiesta Bowl might have wanted to match Notre Dame against one-loss Alabama or maybe one-loss Virginia Tech, but those plans have fizzled. Alabama has two losses after losing to Auburn, and Virginia Tech, thanks to Miami’s loss, is back in the race for the Atlantic Coast Conference title. If Virginia Tech beats North Carolina next week, it will play Florida State on Dec. 3 for the ACC crown. If the Hokies win there, they will go to the Orange Bowl, not the Fiesta.

The Fiesta is staring down a choice between Oregon and Ohio State to match against Notre Dame, and Hansen is ready to fight.

In the 2000 season, Hansen threatened to pull out of the BCS if Oregon State didn’t get a Fiesta Bowl bid, which it did, but he doesn’t have the same leverage this time around.

“I can’t say that today. We just signed a new four-year contract,” Hansen said of the BCS deal with Fox, which starts next year.

Oregon would have been almost a cinch for a BCS game had Ohio State not rallied to defeat Michigan, 25-21, on Antonio Pittman’s three-yard run with 24 seconds left.

Some Pac-10 schools do not “travel well” to bowls -- an important factor in bowl decisions -- but Hansen says that wouldn’t be the case with Oregon.

“Oregon will buy every ticket made available to it,” Hansen said. “They cannot use that on us.”

Hansen called Notre Dame-Ohio State a “regional” game and argued that Oregon has a better record than Ohio State. “Why take a 9-2 team over a 10-1 team?” Hansen asked. “That’s not what bowls do.”