As Bowl Picture Emerges, Bloom Could Be Off Rose

College football ended its thrilling and often baffling regular season Saturday, with a flurry of big games that decided conference titles and national rankings but left fans with a big question.

What happens now?

This much is certain: Miami won its regular-season finale to remain undefeated and will play undefeated Ohio State for the national championship Jan. 3.

But equally important was a matchup of lesser teams, Washington State and UCLA, that had national repercussions.

With Washington State’s 48-27 victory over UCLA, the Cougars secured a spot in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1 and, in all likelihood, bumped USC off the road to Pasadena.

The Trojans figure to land on their feet in either the Sugar Bowl or the Orange Bowl, leaving the Rose Bowl -- which has been the most consistently popular and financially successful of the bowl games -- looking like the big loser.

For decades the game has featured teams from the Pacific 10 and Big Ten but, on Saturday night, officials were resigned to missing out on that traditional and lucrative rivalry.

Blame it on the bowl championship series, the controversial system that determines the eventual champion. This formula took Ohio State for the title game and is expected to send Iowa -- the Big Ten’s other top team -- to the Orange Bowl.

That leaves less-appealing Oklahoma or possibly Florida State as potential opponents for Washington State -- much to the chagrin of the local tourism industry, and several thousand Iowa fans who have purchased plane tickets, travel packages and Rose Parade seats that are not always refundable.

Rose Bowl chief executive Mitch Dorger, who last week said he would be “severely disappointed” at losing Iowa, tempered his reaction.

“This is the system everyone signed up for,” he said. “We’ll get another great team and we’ll have a great game.”

But the college football powers-that-be apparently got the message anyway, saying they will consider his displeasure when they evaluate the BCS after the season.

“I know this has been a very difficult year for the Rose Bowl,” said Michael Tranghese, the BCS coordinator. “A healthy Rose Bowl is a good thing for college football and that has got to be on the table when we do our review.”

Pac-10 Cashes In

There was a bright side for the Pac-10. With one school in a BCS bowl, the conference would get about $13.5 million to split among its teams. With a second team in, it will get an additional $4.5 million on top of that.

As if this scenario weren’t complicated enough, nothing is final until today, when conference commissioners and bowl executives -- like kids choosing sides in a sandlot -- make their selections in closed-door meetings.

Here’s the expected breakdown:

The Fiesta Bowl in Tempe, Ariz., gets Miami and Ohio State, the lone undefeated teams, for the championship game on Jan. 3.

The Orange Bowl on Jan. 2 in Miami gets the next selection and is expected to take Iowa. Florida State or even USC could be the opponent.

Rose Bowl executives pick next and said they would give strong consideration to Oklahoma and Florida State as Washington State’s opponent. USC, which lost to the Cougars in overtime this season, would be a longshot to get a rematch.

The Sugar Bowl in New Orleans has Georgia and could pair the Bulldogs against USC or Florida State.

Rose Bowl executives see only a glimmer of hope that a last-second, backroom deal would deliver Iowa to them. After the major bowls fill their slots, lesser games will vie for the rest.

Gone are the days when bowls were locked into agreements with various conferences, an arrangement that was orderly but rarely brought together the two best teams.

Five years ago, college football created the BCS, ranking teams by way of polls, computer formulas, strength of schedule and losses. The four major bowls take turns playing host to the championship.

“The BCS is a system put in place to bring the No. 1 and No. 2 teams together,” Tranghese said. “It has never promised to do anything more than that.”

But in plucking the two best teams, the BCS can create havoc below.

Bowls are left to scramble, looking not only at won-loss records but also at teams with a reputation for bringing lots of fans to buy tickets, fill hotels and eat at restaurants.

Iowa has “an incredible fan base,” Orange Bowl spokesman Joe Hornstein said. “From that aspect, they look like an incredible team.”

Kansas State went so far as to send its president, athletic director and coach to Miami last week to guarantee the Orange Bowl Kansas State could sell 25,000 tickets if that school were chosen.

“In some ways it reveals the worst in college sports,” said Murray Sperber, an Indiana University professor and author of several books on the business of intercollegiate athletics. “This is a kind of hodgepodge system based on power and greed.”

Rose Bowl executives, long shielded from such dealings, are learning.

When the BCS was created, they knew that once every four years they would play host to the championship and forsake their normal rivalry. That happened last season when Miami and Nebraska met in Pasadena.

But Dorger and his cohorts did not foresee a season like this, when the first- and second-place teams from one of their conferences would be scooped up, forcing them to look elsewhere.

They also failed to appreciate the complexity of a BCS formula that, given a UCLA victory, would have sent USC and Iowa their way. Complex enough that it had Trojan fans rooting for a Bruin victory Saturday.

“The Orange, the Sugar and Fiesta bowls have had to deal with this,” Tranghese said. “This is the first time it has happened to the Rose Bowl.”

Time Is Short

To compound the situation, executives now face a crunch in promoting their game. Whereas they once finalized their matchup by Thanksgiving, this time they must wait until today’s final selections.

“We should already be working to sell merchandise and arrange ticket packages,” Dorger said. “This puts pressure on us.”

Fans might feel the pinch too.

“It’s harder for them to get transportation,” Pac-10 assistant commissioner Jim Muldoon said. “The longer they wait, the more they might pay.”

Still, Pasadena restaurateurs and hoteliers remained optimistic that a Washington State-Oklahoma matchup would be a money-maker. “I’m sure their fans will come out,” said John Luke, general manager of the Hilton Hotel Pasadena.

Tranghese also looked on the bright side of the situation.

“Saturday was a great day,” he said. “All you have to do is look at the television ratings. They’ll be through the roof.”

Either way, the six major conferences are contractually bound to the system through 2005, so it is uncertain what changes -- including an oft-discussed playoff -- would result from an off-season review.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Hornstein of the Orange Bowl said. “This is the BCS.”

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Times staff writer Matt Lait contributed to this report.