Summing Up the BCS Picture Is Child’s Play

This year’s national title race is starting to play out like that children’s game “Mouse Trap.”

You remember: shoe tips bucket holding metal ball toward a perilous downhill gantlet of rickety stairs, bathtub roundabouts and rubber-band powered levers?

Sounds like a metaphor for UCLA’s season.

Safe to say after last weekend several balls have careened off the game board. Five previously undefeated teams have been defeated, leaving Miami, Nebraska and BCS-forsaken Brigham Young as the only D-I schools without a “D.”

With roughly one month left, Miami and Nebraska have separated from the pack, but it’s only going to take one more wild weekend to throw the season into calculator chaos, you know, 14 or 15 one-loss teams trying to stake claims to the national title game.

“The big picture involves quite a few pretty good football teams,” Nebraska Coach Frank Solich said after his team’s 20-10 win over Oklahoma. “But the big picture is still unclear.”

A review of the weekend’s winners and losers:

Winner: Big 12 Conference: Today’s bowl championship series standings probably will reflect three big (12) shots in the top five: Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas. Hey, aren’t there laws against monopolies? Yes. In college football’s version of the Sherman Act, rules prohibit three schools from the same conference cashing $13-million bowl checks, meaning one of these BCS busters might be packing for the Holiday Bowl (Texas is the best guess).

The Longhorns, dare we say, have worked their way back into title contention just by hanging around the BCS water cooler. Texas still needs another Oklahoma loss to win the South Division and earn a trip to the Big 12 championship game Dec. 1, but maybe they’re better off not winning the South, finishing 10-1, and seeing how it all shakes out.

Loser: Pacific 10. We’ve gone Bruin blue in the face telling you kids, over, and over, and over: playing in the nation’s best conference was the ultimate kiss of death in a national title race, because all those Pac-10 schools were going to knock each other off.

Close your eyes and Stanford, Washington, Washington State, UCLA and Oregon are the same team, with different fight songs. Of course, some of the coaches (wink, wink Rick Neuheisel) are luckier than others.

Saturday was Commissioner Tom Hansen’s proudest moment and worst nightmare:

Top-drawer league, Thomas, we hope your champion enjoys the Fiesta Bowl.

All it took was Stanford over UCLA and Oregon over Washington State to dash the conference’s hopes of sending a team to the Rose Bowl game--don’t those words sound a tad askew.

Yes, you eternal optimists, if the national race gets down to a battle of once-defeated schools, the Pac-10 still could get a Duck or a Bruin back in the hunt. Reality: the continual lack of respect shown the Pac-10--Stanford at only No. 22 in last week’s coaches’ poll?--makes the Rose Bowl a difficult proposition.

Winner: Miami. OK, Hurricane fans, stop your griping about BCS conspiracies. You and Nebraska are the two schools that control your own destiny. Win out and we’ll set a table for you in Pasadena.

Loser: Brigham Young. Time to start griping about BCS conspiracies. After getting snubbed from the major bowls after going 13-1 in 1996, the Western Athletic Conference went to Congress to force the big boys to add an addendum stipulating any two-bit, um, non - major conference would earn a major bid with a top-six finish.

BYU is the third undefeated school at 8-0 but definitely the odd-team out.

Wouldn’t something else have to be stipulated if BYU finished 11-0 and No. 7 in the final BCS standings?

Winner: Nebraska quarterback Eric Crouch. On a weekend when other Heisman candidates failed to cut a distinguished swath--UCLA’s DeShaun Foster, Miami’s Ken Dorsey, Oregon’s Joey Harrington--Crouch made the play of the day in the game of day.

Crouch’s final numbers were not overwhelming, but his 63-yard touchdown catch against Oklahoma bought ESPN replay time no sports information department key chain giveaway or junk-mail campaign could duplicate.

Despite his 33rd victory as Nebraska starter, tying Tommie Frazier’s record for a quarterback, Crouch needed this game to rubber-stamp his credentials.

Of his critics, Crouch said: “This might silence some people.”

Loser: Bob Davie. Notre Dame’s come-from-ahead loss to Boston College dropped the Irish’s record to 3-4 and all but assured Davie will not be back as coach. The irony is Davie was all set to take the Boston College job in 1997 but pulled out his name when Lou Holtz resigned in South Bend.

Bottom line: Davie should have taken the B.C. job. It was a better fit and he might have avoided the maelstrom he has faced.

Winner: Joe Paterno. Paterno tied Bear Bryant’s major college victory mark of 323 last week at Northwestern and not one Penn State player offered Coach Pa a congratulatory hug or hand.

Now we know why. Penn State was saving the tears and heart tugs for the home celebration Saturday, when Paterno etched win No. 324 against Ohio State.

Loser: Virginia Tech. Actually, the Hokies’ loss to Syracuse was a win for those mesmerized at the notion Virginia Tech was a top-five BCS team. At what point does the combination of weak conference plus weak nonconference schedule count against you in the BCS?

Rose Bowl Tracking Poll

In the game this week: Nebraska vs. Miami. Meanwhile, over in Tempe, 10-1 UCLA takes on 10-1 Michigan in the Fiesta Bowl, the granddaddy of all corn chip-sponsored bowls.

Still has a float in the parade: Any school in the top 20 with one loss, excluding BYU, which is undefeated but has no chance (see aforementioned WAC Act).