And Now, More Than a Word About the BCS

All the commentary about the BCS proceeds from a faulty premise -- that the purpose of the BCS is to determine a national champion. It is not. The purpose of the BCS is to provide many millions of dollars to ABC and the conferences and universities party to the contract. If a national champion results, that’s an incidental benefit.

James E. Dunlevey

Sun City

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USC gets to claim a legitimate national championship by winning the Rose Bowl game, just like old times, while those other teams can fight it out for the highly tainted BCS trophy, from a BCS that has no credibility with anyone outside of Oklahoma and Louisiana.

It will be the Tainted Bowl, whose winner ‘taint really the national champion.

John MacDougall

La Crescenta

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The BCS got it right.

Wins over top 20 teams: Oklahoma 3, LSU 3, USC 1.

Losses to non top-20 teams: Oklahoma 0, LSU 0, USC 1.

End of discussion.

Ed Noreika

Simi Valley

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Well, here we go again. Six years of BCS and not one Pac-10 team is deemed worthy of admittance. Twelve slots and not one Pac-10 team admitted. Do I detect a bias here?

Quit calling it an “East Coast bias” and call it by what it truly is, a Southern (SEC) and Midwest (Big 12, Big Ten) bias.

Doug Steinmeyer

South Pasadena

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OK, the BCS stinks, but I figured at least USC would play locally on New Year’s Day, enabling most of the Trojan faithful to attend.

Not so fast. After holding six season tickets for more than 20 years, we were only allowed to enter a lottery for two tickets to the big game? No matter how many tickets you faithfully purchase each spring, you get only two to the Rose Bowl.

We’ve known about how money talks at USC since they changed the seating plan in the Coliseum not so long ago, pushing long-term season-ticket holders toward the goal posts as they made room for the bigger donors at midfield.

So as much as I griped about the BCS this season, I felt it only fair to expose yet another injustice on the college football scene -- USC’s lack of loyalty to season-ticket holders.

Cheryl Crawford

Chino Hills

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Can you really call the coaches’ poll a poll if the outcome is decreed by contract rather than a vote?

P.J. Gendell

Beverly Hills

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After hearing about the final BCS standings, I was heartbroken! As a UCLA alumnus, I practically cried myself to sleep that night.

But then it dawned on me. Isn’t this the same USC football team that got spanked by a second-rate Cal team?

Then I got over it real quick and fell into a nice peaceful slumber.

Ricardo Padilla

Torrance

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The job of the BCS is to strike a balance between the cold analysis of numbers and the perception and emotion of an election. You may not like it, but the BCS did its job.

USC and LSU played two common opponents and LSU won both games by a wider margin. LSU’s loss was to a ranked team and it played a tougher schedule.

The NCAA couldn’t possibly have a better situation -- or payday -- than it will get with all the publicity of having two championship games and a disputed champion.

Dan Shiells

Los Angeles

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Let’s put the blame where it really belongs: Lack of a college football playoff system. There really isn’t any reason why these teams need to play 12 or 13 games before the bowls. Limit the regular-season games to 10, and then spend December with playoffs among the top 16 teams.

George W. Rainey

Los Angeles

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Five reasons why LSU should be No. 1:

* They play in a tougher conference.

* They played a tougher schedule.

* They lost to a tougher team.

* Their final-day win over Georgia on a neutral field was more impressive than USC’s win at home over unranked Oregon State.

* Voters picked USC because they are a bigger name in football than LSU.

Walt Bales

Anaheim

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No. 1 USC vs. No. 4 Michigan and No. 2 LSU vs. No. 3 Oklahoma. You couldn’t ask for a better first round of the playoffs.

Too bad we’ll never see the final game we all want to see.

Kevin McMennamin

Redondo Beach

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Since when were the French Olympic figure skating judges allowed to vote in the BCS?

Jason Garrison

Temecula

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If USC wants to avoid not being invited to the big dance in the future, I have only one suggestion. Drop out of that wimpy Pac-10, join the SEC and learn what big-time college football is all about.

Larry A. Bringol

New Orleans

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Why are the Trojans in this situation? Look no further than BCS coordinator Mike Tranghese, the same Mr. Tranghese who is the commissioner of the Big East Conference, which just this year lost Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College to the ACC.

If Tranghese can’t manage his own conference and keep it together, why in the world was he selected to be the BCS coordinator?

Richard Whorton

Valley Village

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How utterly ridiculous for university presidents and athletic directors to claim they won’t support a playoff system because such a system would unreasonably extend the season and put undue pressure on the athletes.

Every other college sport and every other division in college football has a playoff, which doesn’t seem to concern these leaders in the slightest.

The real reason they refuse to endorse a playoff system, the only fair, just and equitable method to determine a national champion, is because it would jeopardize the multimillion-dollar bowl bonanza.

Mark Rochefort

Arcadia

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If only for a moment, the much maligned BCS system has given us a glorious step back in time, a return to the way we were -- USC vs. Michigan in the Rose Bowl with the Trojans having a shot at the national title.

You got a problem with the BCS? I love it, at least this year I do.

Dan Jensen

San Clemente