How Strange Is BCS? USC Rooting for Notre Dame

It has been 25 years since USC won a half share of the 1978 national title with a group I believe was known as “Wild Bunch 1/2,” yet there’s no question the Trojans are in the thick of this year’s Roman Decimal Point bowl championship series chariot race.

USC jumped from No. 7 to No. 4 in this week’s BCS standings and must get to No. 1 or No. 2 to earn a spot in the Jan. 4 Sugar Bowl.

It’s a complicated process, sort of like a hair weave, and that’s why I spent two or three minutes preparing a pocket guide for Trojan rooting interests.

There are a handful of meaningful weekend games that can have an impact on USC’s title chances, and this is important in considering when to scream at the officials.

Dumb call or great call, how can you tell until you know how it affects your team?

Should No. 1 Oklahoma or No. 2 Miami lose a game in the coming weeks, the race for the all-important second BCS spot becomes a battle of one-loss schools.

As it stands, only 2.26 BCS points separate No. 3 Florida State from No. 6 Ohio State, with USC only 0.73 out of the third spot.

So, USC fans, you need to go Trojan hoarse for:

* USC to defeat Washington State. (Hate to overstate the obvious here, but one must understand the importance of taking care of business.) A second conference defeat knocks USC from Sugar Bowl consideration to, gulp, the Holiday or Sun bowls.

* Notre Dame to defeat Florida State: OK, Trojans, in the key of “G”: Send a volley cheer on high, Shake down the thunder from the sky.

File this under “BCS makes for strange bedfellows.” Remember last year when USC fans invaded the Rose Bowl to root for UCLA to beat Washington State because a Bruin victory would have sent the Trojans to the Rose Bowl?

Two weeks after pummeling its archrival in South Bend, USC needs a favor from the team it recently shook down. A Notre Dame upset of Florida State would knock the Seminoles out of contention and allow USC to move up in the BCS.

Be sure not to miss Friday’s pep rally in the quad, where Tommy Trojan will recite Knute Rockne’s “Win One for the Gipper” speech.

The guess here is 2-5 Notre Dame will come through in the clutch the way UCLA did last year against Washington State (Cougars 48, UCLA 27).

* Oklahoma State to defeat No. 1 Oklahoma. This isn’t so farfetched. Bob Stoops may be America’s best college coach, but Oklahoma State is the one team he hasn’t conquered. Oklahoma State has won the last two meetings and Cowboy Coach Les Miles has somehow gotten in Stoops’ head. Last week, Miles said Oklahoma was the best team in the country, “so we’re told.”

So we’re told?

You talk about a thinly veiled psychological stab.

“It probably means he doesn’t believe it,” Stoops said. “Gauging on the way we played a year ago, I don’t blame him for not respecting us very much.”

Impact on USC: Any Oklahoma loss is a good loss.

* Virginia Tech to defeat Miami:

Trojan fans, after you master the Irish Victory March, break out the Virginia Tech songbook, gobble like a turkey, and repeat after me:

Hokie, Hokie, Hokie, Hi!

Tech, Tech, VPI

Sol-a-rex, Sol-a-rah

Poly Tech Vir-gin-ia

Ray rah, VPI

Once, Virginia Tech athletes were known as “gobblers,” but that was before the nonsensical “Hokie” nickname took root.

Impact on USC: Miami is one of two undefeated teams blocking the Trojans from the No. 1 or No. 2 BCS spot. And while Virginia Tech’s 28-7 loss at West Virginia last week does not bode well for an upset of Miami, any game in Blacksburg is as tough as any mule ride into Blacksburg.

In fact, Miami Coach Larry Coker thinks Virginia Tech is more desperate and dangerous now.

“The best thing for us would have been for Virginia Tech to have won the game handily, because we nearly lost to West Virginia, so that would have spoke volumes,” Coker said. “This does make the game tougher.”

The facts suggest otherwise.

Virginia Tech Coach Frank Beamer is 0-6 in Blacksburg against teams ranked in the Associated Press top 10.

* Florida to defeat Georgia: USC rooters need to buddy-up with Florida and forget the fact the school accidentally put a crocodile on its media guide cover. The Gators are a dangerous 5-3 team that can help USC by taking out injury-plagued Georgia this weekend in the “World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party” and/or whipping Florida State when the teams meet in November.

* Louisiana Tech to beat BCS No. 7 Louisiana State. The chances here are Kate Moss-slim, although Louisiana Tech is responsible for Michigan State’s only loss. LSU is a possible BCS threat to USC if the Tigers run the table and win the Southeastern Conference.

* Penn State to defeat Ohio State. Don’t get your heart set, as it’s doubtful the 76-year-old Joe Paterno has another trick up that 76-year-old jacket sleeve.

We also offer two bonus game-trackers, although neither outcome is of immediate threat to USC.

Still, Trojan fans should want:

* Michigan to defeat Michigan State. With two losses, Lloyd Carr’s Wolverines are out of national-title contention, but they can help the USC cause with a win over the one-loss Spartans this week and a victory against one-loss Ohio State in Ann Arbor.

* Texas to defeat Nebraska. Like Michigan, two-loss Texas can only act as a BCS spoiler. Nebraska is No. 9 in the BCS and has a chance to make a late-season run by winning the Big 12 North and possibly meeting, and defeating, Oklahoma in the conference title game.

Hurry-Up Offense

The Bowden family threw a party for Bobby last week after the Florida State coach passed Paterno on the all-time major-college victory list.

Bowden thought it was strange in that he and Paterno are still active coaches and this race may go on for years.

“Why are we celebrating?” Bowden said. “You’re in the dadgum World Series, seventh ballgame, bottom of the eighth and everybody starts celebrating? You’ve got some more ball to play. It’s funny.”

Conspiracy theories: A few USC fans already are complaining about the suspicious nature of the Trojans’ current BCS computer rankings. USC is No. 3 in both polls but ranked No. 5 or worse in six of the seven computers used in the BCS.

USC’s is No. 8 in Anderson & Hester, a Seattle-based poll with University of Washington ties (Ah-ha!). The Trojans are No. 7 in the index of Peter Wolfe, an associate professor at UCLA’s school of medicine (Ah-ha!!). Wolfe is a die-hard Bruin fan, but it’s a reach to suggest he has somehow tweaked his index against the Trojans. We’ll keep our eyes peeled. Also, remember a team’s worst computer ranking is thrown out of the computer average, meaning Anderson & Hester did not factor in this week’s rating for USC.

Ah-ha factor, part III: Wolfe has UCLA rated No. 20 this week even though the Bruins have failed to crack either the AP or coaches’ poll. This hardly ranks as a conspiracy, though, given the “prestigious” New York Times computer has UCLA at 17.5. UCLA is No. 25 overall in the BCS with 55.89 points, a mere 52.02 points behind No. 2 Miami.

Dropped like an anchor: It’s obvious the New York Times computer never bought into the charm that once was Northern Illinois. The NYT dropped NIU from No. 27 to No. 54 after last week’s loss to Bowling Green, a team that defeated Purdue and almost defeated Ohio State.

Counting down: John Gagliardi of Division III St. John’s (Minn.) can tie Eddie Robinson’s all-time coaching victory mark of 408 with a win Saturday at St. Thomas in St. Paul.

St. Thomas is 3-5 this year (St. John’s is 7-0), but is one of St. John’s primary rivals. Naturally, a St. John’s spokesman said this week, “You can throw the records out the window in this one.”

If Gagliardi ties the mark Saturday, he will do so on his 77th birthday.

Boot camp: This is the first 13-game season Army has played and the shame of it is the Black Knights may lose them all. Army and Southern Methodist are the only winless teams in major college.

Army, which owns the nation’s longest losing streak at 10 games, has had only two winless seasons in its 114-year history. It went 0-1 in 1890, losing its only game to Navy, and 0-10 in 1973.

It didn’t used to be like this. Army still ranks 24th all-time in winning percentage at .607. In a seven-year span from 1944 through 1950, Army went 57-3 under legendary coach Earl H. “Red” Blaik and won AP national titles in 1944 and 1945.

A BCS numbers game: Texas Christian is 8-0 and one of three unbeaten teams in major college but has no real gripe about being only No. 12 in this week’s BCS standings.

TCU has a schedule rank No. 99 (out of 117) and the combined record of its eight opponents is 22-42. The Horned Frogs have defeated two BCS schools, Vanderbilt and Arizona, which have a combined 2-15 record.