Playing With Matchups, Auburn Will Get Burned

It did not work out in the end.

Bowl championship series organizers who implored us to stop screaming and let the system play out before we criticized it can now listen to shrieks of Auburn Coach Tommy Tuberville when his 12-0 team gets left out of the national title game.

“Sure I’ll scream, real loud, to myself,” Tuberville said after his team whipped Tennessee on Saturday night at the Georgia Dome.

The BCS was hoping one upset Saturday could bail the flawed system out of another bad dream.

But it didn’t happen, and there is no system in the world in which three teams can cram into one bowl game.

Yet, that’s where we are after No. 1 USC beat UCLA, No. 2 Oklahoma clobbered Colorado and No. 3 Auburn defeated Tennessee.

Now what?

Now we go to the BCS scorecards, and it won’t be pretty.

Barring any dramatic surprises -- Tuberville, believe it or not, is still holding out hope -- USC and Oklahoma will emerge No. 1 and No. 2 in today’s final BCS standings and Auburn will be on the outside looking in.

Unjust?

Unfair?

Tough to swallow?

Without a doubt.

“If Auburn goes undefeated in this conference, they deserve to play for the national title,” Southeastern Conference Commissioner Mike Slive said Saturday night.

Slive also knows what goes around comes around.

Last year, USC was No. 1 in both polls and didn’t make the BCS championship -- but Louisiana State, of the SEC, did.

“Last year, I woke up in the morning and my team was playing for the national championship,” he said.

In a system based on poll position, not a playoff system, Auburn never had a chance.

USC started out the season as the nation’s No. 1 team. Oklahoma started out at No. 2. Both teams won all of their games.

“I don’t know how this is going to turn out,” USC Coach Pete Carroll said. “We’ve done all we can do.”

Presumably, that will be enough. Despite USC’s rocky-road victory against cross-town rival UCLA, there’s no way USC drops out this year

We think not.

That doesn’t diminish what Auburn accomplished and the hurt their coaches and players are going to feel today should the Tigers draw BCS slot No. 3.

“I definitely feel we deserve a shot to play for the national title,” Auburn quarterback Jason Campbell said. “That’s what you come here to play for.”

Auburn started the game thinking it had an outside chance of stealing the No. 2 BCS spot from Oklahoma.

That seems remote now given Auburn’s tougher-than-expected game against injury-depleted Tennessee and Oklahoma’s crushing victory over Colorado in the Big 12 title game.

Tuberville tried to put on his best spin possible.

“We’ll make some headway in the polls, whether it’s enough, I don’t know,” he said. “I hope people give us a fair shot and look at the football team.”

The problem voters will have is putting Auburn in at the expense of USC or Oklahoma.

Last year, after USC was shut out of the BCS title game despite finishing No. 1 in both polls, officials tweaked the formula to ensure that couldn’t happen again.

There was never, however, a solution for three deserving, unbeaten teams vying for two spots.

Having three unbeaten teams wasn’t the only problem that fell into the BCS’ lap Saturday.

No. 4 California and No. 5 Texas started the day in a BCS points war for the second at-large BCS spot.

California led Texas by .0013 in the standings and it was thought the Golden Bears needed an impressive victory over Southern Mississippi to maintain their slender lead.

Well, 10-1 Cal might not have done enough in winning, 26-16.

It is going to take only a few writers or coaches jumping Texas over Cal in today’s final polls to change the teams’ BCS order.

If Texas gets to No. 4, it gets the bid, and the Rose Bowl cannot take Cal, desperately seeking its first Rose Bowl appearance since 1959.

“If the voters do their job,” Cal Athletic Director Sandy Barbour said, “we’ll be in the Rose Bowl. We did what we needed to do.... We have one blemish on our record. We lost by six points to the No. 1 team in the nation.”

All five writers from Texas who vote in the Associated Press poll had Cal ahead of Texas entering weekend play. Texas Coach Mack Brown has been publicly pleading for votes and said he doesn’t care if he’s perceived as a whiner.

Tim Griffin, who works for the San Antonio Express-News, said Saturday night he wasn’t sure if he was going to move Texas ahead of Cal.

“I haven’t decided,” Griffin said. “I was impressed with how Cal played in the fourth quarter. As of now, it’s fair to say I’m leaning toward Cal.”

Rose Bowl CEO Mitch Dorger said Saturday night he would be “very disappointed” if Cal was to fall from Pasadena all the way to the Holiday Bowl.

In that scenario, presuming USC ends up No. 1 in the BCS, the Rose Bowl would then choose between Texas or Utah to fill the void against Michigan.

Because of a clause in the BCS contract, the Fiesta Bowl would get to take Texas if it wanted the Longhorns, but there are indications the Fiesta Bowl would love to take 11-0 Utah, the first non-BCS team to make a BCS bowl.

It might also make more TV ratings sense to pit Texas versus Michigan in the Rose Bowl.

Dorger said the Rose Bowl would have no problem accepting a Texas team that knocked Cal out of Pasadena.

“It’s not Texas’ system,” Dorger said of the BCS mess. “They didn’t do anything to do that.”

If Cal doesn’t get to the Rose Bowl, the major bowl games should look like this:

Rose: Texas vs. Michigan.

Fiesta: Utah vs. Pittsburgh.

Sugar: Auburn vs. Virginia Tech.

Orange: USC vs. Oklahoma.

Chris Knight, president of the Orange Bowl selection committee, said his bowl would be thrilled to host USC vs. Oklahoma for the national title.

“It would be fantastic,” Knight said. “ ... How many people would watch that? It’s a can’t miss.”

Can’t miss?

Once again, that’s more than you can say for the BCS.

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Times staff writers David Wharton, Thomas Bonk and Steve Springer contributed to this report.