USC Will Be OK as Long as Voters Don’t Pull Rank

After further review:

* USC’s Sugar Bowl prospects got stronger Sunday as data trickled in from various bowl championship series precincts.

A key was USC holding its No. 2 position over No. 3 Louisiana State in both the writers’ and coaches’ polls.

As USC is trying to protect a 2.15-point lead over LSU in the BCS standings, a flip-flop in either poll would have cost the Trojans half a point in the formula.

We speculated LSU’s lopsided win over Arkansas on Friday might provoke some voters to jump LSU over idle USC into the No. 2 spot.

Sure enough, LSU gained ground on USC in both polls, but not enough to cause Trojan fans alarm.

USC lost four points in the coaches’ poll, going from 1,510 last week to 1,506, while LSU’s point total grew from 1,445 to 1,451.

In the AP poll, USC lost three points, dipping from 1,558 to 1,555, while LSU’s total rose from 1,492 to 1,495.

Also, Hawaii’s win over Alabama could give USC a boost of as much as 0.32 of a BCS point in the strength-of-schedule component.

Bottom line: USC will be No. 2 in today’s BCS standings with a fairly comfortable lead over LSU with one week to go before next Sunday’s final BCS standings are announced.

* Atlantic Coast Conference officials may have missed a call or two or three or four or five -- OK, six -- in Saturday’s Florida-Florida State game. The fact every call went against Florida in a 38-34 defeat has Gator fans and Athletic Director Jeremy Foley crying foul. Foley complained to Southeastern Conference Commissioner Mike Slive on Sunday, but there was nothing much Slive could say.

The Gators may have been robbed, but still would have won had they stopped Florida State on fourth and 14 late in the game, or prevented Chris Rix’s game-winning 52-yard pass to P.K. Sam with 55 seconds left.

Florida State fans will say this is justice for the 1966 game in which the officials ruled Seminole receiver Lane Fenner out of bounds on an apparent touchdown catch in a 22-19 Florida win. Photographs revealed Fenner had both feet in bounds on the play.

How about we call it even and end the bickering.

* College football has officially lost all perspective, starting with university presidents who piously promised to seize the moral and ethical high ground.

Oh, really? To the laundry list of top-down embarrassments in college sports in the last year, add recent developments at Auburn and Nebraska.

Two days before his team played rival Alabama, Auburn President William Walker embarked on a jet trip that would be rivaled in secrecy only by President Bush’s stealth mission to Iraq.

Walker and a couple of booster buddies flew to Kentucky to see if Louisville Coach Bobby Petrino might be interested in the Auburn job, even though Auburn already had a coach, Tommy Tuberville.

Walker didn’t seek permission from Louisville to speak to Petrino and he completely undermined Tuberville. The story went public after Petrino removed himself from consideration for a job that wasn’t open.

And college administrators want to talk ethics?

Saturday, with the blessing of the school president, Nebraska Athletic Director Steve Pederson fired Frank Solich one day after the coach ran his career record to 58-19 with a thrilling road win at Colorado.

“It was almost like losing my father,” Nebraska split end Ross Pilkington told Associated Press. “After winning nine games, that doesn’t happen.”

Oh yes it does.

Pederson said the decision wasn’t easy. Well, sure, it would have been much tougher firing Solich on Christmas Eve.

Pederson also said, “I refuse to let this program gravitate toward mediocrity.”

For the record, with a bowl win, Nebraska would finish the season 10-3.

From 1962 through 1997, Nebraska had two coaches, first Bob Devaney and then Tom Osborne. The Nebraska coaching family tree was solid as cedar, but no more.

Osborne went 21 years before winning his first national title, but that was in a simpler, less cutthroat time.

Whereas Osborne played Father Flanagan in college football’s version of “Boys Town” (located in Omaha), Solich ends up an orphan.

The man ultimately to blame, of course, is not Pederson but Oklahoma Coach Bob Stoops, who has raised the stakes so high in this Big 12 rivalry that firing a coach who won 75% of his games somehow makes sense.

Welcome to the new world order.

Weekend Wrap

Notre Dame was leading Stanford, 57-7, with 4:49 left Saturday when Fighting Irish Coach Tyrone Willingham ordered a fake punt on fourth down. A final dig at the school where Willingham once coached?

Heavens no. Willingham said he was just going by the book.

“Stanford was lined up defensively in a way that caused us to try the fake punt,” he explained to the San Jose Mercury News.

We’re just guessing Knute Rockne might have played it differently.

Miami’s victory over Pittsburgh on Saturday helped clarify the major bowl picture. Miami probably will end up in the Orange Bowl, and perhaps face at-large Ohio State in a rematch of last season’s thrilling national-title game in the Fiesta Bowl.

Our best stab at the BCS bowl lineup, provided form holds among the top teams: Sugar -- Oklahoma vs. USC; Rose -- Texas vs. Michigan; Fiesta -- LSU vs. Florida State; Orange -- Miami vs. Ohio State.

You have to figure Miami’s win over Pittsburgh would quiet the ESPN-promoted Heisman Trophy campaign for receiver Larry Fitzgerald, who had three catches for 26 yards in a loss. But don’t count on it as long as ESPN analyst and former Pitt player Mark May is exhaling carbon dioxide.

Parting note: Oregon State’s last win over USC at the Coliseum was Sept. 16 ... 1960.