BCS Still a Badly Crafted System

So USC presumably goes on to the Orange Bowl, the Trojans coming up as the biggest winners on a day when college football loses all around.

I hate the BCS more than ever after it led to some people questioning USC’s No. 1 credential for barely hanging on to beat the huge underdog Bruins, 29-24, at the Rose Bowl on Saturday, left a deserving, undefeated conference champion out of the Orange Bowl picture and left you wondering just how far college football’s powers will go to protect their big-money stakes.

To paraphrase Miami rapper Luke, whom the USC faithful might bump into as they make the rounds on South Beach next month, “Hate, hate and mo’ hate.”

Where to begin?

How about late in the second quarter, when UCLA linebacker Justin London pried the ball away from USC’s Reggie Bush, Bruin linebacker Spencer Havner scooped up the loose ball and had nothing between him and the end zone for a score-tying touchdown....

“Then I hear the whistle,” Havner said. “After I had the ball about five yards down the field, that’s when I hear the whistle.”

The officials ruled London halted Bush’s forward progress and the play was dead before Bush fumbled. The U.S. Border Patrol couldn’t have stopped Bush on Saturday, and now the officials thought one man halted him in a split second?

Let the conspiracy theories begin.

“It’s the BCS at work?” Havner said, acknowledging a line of questioning with a knowing smile. “Wanting to keep their No. 1, or what?

“I’d like to think no. Or else, why play?”

We’ll chalk up Havner’s belief in the purity of the sport to youthful naivete.

I’m more inclined to follow the money.

“Dollar signs,” as Kansas Coach Mark Mangino said.

He flat-out blamed greater forces for an offensive pass interference call that went against his team and led to a game-winning touchdown by Texas in the last minute. The Big 12 would gain an extra $4 million if the Longhorns could join Oklahoma in the BCS bonanza.

As long as college football places a greater emphasis on polls and bowls than a true championship tournament, it leaves itself wide open to questions about its integrity.

The same principles, or lack thereof, applied to USC-UCLA. The Pacific 10 Conference stood to reap a similar financial benefit if USC remained an undefeated participant in the Orange Bowl and California could maintain a second spot in the BCS games for the conference.

UCLA Coach Karl Dorrell was more diplomatic than Mangino, refraining from any implication of ulterior motives

“There weren’t good calls today,” Dorrell said. “I don’t want to get in trouble by that, but in a game like this ... that shouldn’t happen in a game like this. Not like this.”

Said London, more bluntly: “They took it from us.”

That doesn’t mean USC didn’t deserve to win, and that the Trojans shouldn’t play in the Orange Bowl.

Keith Tribble, the Orange Bowl chief executive who has seen all of the top teams play in person, sure thinks USC belongs. He wouldn’t bite on a question about which of the other undefeated major conference champions, Oklahoma and Auburn, should be left out. But he was all over USC.

“No question they deserve to be No. 1,” he said. “They started No. 1 and they ended No. 1.”

That rationale is another thing I hate about the BCS. I believe USC is the best football team in the country. I just don’t agree with using the 2003 season -- which served as the primary basis for their preseason top ranking -- as a justification for the Trojans to be No. 1. It should be based solely on this year’s performance. Should we go ahead and book the Lakers into the NBA Finals because they won the Western Conference last season?

Here’s the only argument USC needs: It won every game, sometimes in breathtaking fashion. Saturday’s effort wouldn’t fall in the latter category, because the USC offense never got into one of its trademark grooves and the defense allowed two second-half touchdowns for the first time all season. You could almost hear the unimpressed sniffs coming from voters around the country.

Still, the Trojans, who have been playing since Aug. 28, who were coming off a victory over another rival, Notre Dame, and who had to be thinking about the Orange Bowl, held on to beat a UCLA squad that had three weeks to prepare for a contest that meant more to them than whatever bowl game it is they’re going to.

The Trojans did their best within the constraints of this flawed system. While they were unfairly shut out of the big game last season, it’ll be someone else’s turn to complain now.

Meanwhile, the BCS folks will try to pass off the Orange Bowl as the true measure of the national championship. It’s pulp fiction.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Adande, go to latimes.com/adande.