This BCS Title Game Was Simply Child’s Play

Rick Morrissey in the Chicago Tribune: “The Rose Bowl was supposed to be the national championship game of the bowl championship series, but it was reduced to a game of hide-and-seek.

“The winner was forced to hide behind a sham of a system, and Oregon was left to seek justice. If there were any, the second-best team in the Big 12’s North Division wouldn’t have been anywhere near the national-title game....

“The two most dominant teams in college football didn’t get a chance to play each other. Miami will always have Thursday night. Oregon will have its daydreams.”

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More BCS: Bob Ryan in the Boston Globe: “You can imagine some Nebraska guy turning to his wife early in the second quarter and saying, ‘We put off buying the new tractor for this ? ‘ ...

“So let’s hope those jaunts to Disneyland, Universal Studios and maybe even Rodeo Drive went well. Good Huskers can’t live on football alone.”

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Even more BCS: From Mike Bianchi in the Orlando Sentinel: “There were 93,781 fans at the Rose Bowl on Thursday, and it seemed like there were 900,000 wearing Nebraska red. If this were a movie, it would have been called ‘The Tomato That Ate Pasadena.’

“Huskers fans didn’t just buy their allotment of 21,000 tickets; they gobbled them down like a threshing machine inhales cornstalks. And they begged for more and more and more.”

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Trivia time: How many former UCLA and USC players have played for the Lakers?

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Hopeless: Freelance columnist Norman Chad analyzing some of this weekend’s NFL games:

* “Vikings at Ravens: Cris Carter helping Randy Moss ‘develop into an NFL player’ in Minnesota appears to be as sound a decision as the U.S. helping Saddam Hussein ‘consolidate power’ in Iraq.

* “Cowboys at Lions: Emmitt Smith quietly checking if NFL Europe rushing yardage would count toward his career march past Walter Payton.”

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Why not? Skip Bayless of the San Jose Mercury News, writing on Stanford pursuing the San Francisco 49ers’ Steve Mariucci for its next football coach: “Stanford should go after a man who offers even more than [Tyrone] Willingham did--a highly personable and principled NFL coach with a college rah-rah approach.”

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Pro picks: From the Caught on the Fly column in the Sporting News: “It took about a nanosecond after Oregon and Fresno finished bowling for QB-desperate teams [start a single-file line behind Li’l Danny Snyder] to start making eyes at Joey Harrington and David Carr. The early handicapping says NFL scouts favor Harrington for his size, but Carr gets the nod for his arm, mobility, poise and, yep, upside.”

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Looking back: On this day in 1951, Indianapolis defeated Rochester, 73-71, in a game that lasted an NBA-record six overtimes.

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Trivia answer: Twelve Bruins and five Trojans.

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And finally: Pitcher David Wells reportedly will join the New York Yankees. Said Ken Rudulph of Fox’s “Best Damn Sports Show Period”: “The deal will be complete following a physical, which has been delayed in order to assemble enough people to lift Wells onto the scales.”