There Are Plenty of Titles to Go Around

With all the rhetoric flying around college football about the bowl championship series system failing to produce a true national champion, it was left to a soft-spoken cornerback from Louisiana State to provide perhaps the most sage perspective on the controversy that has dominated headlines for the last month.

“To win the national title, to me, is sort of like winning the lottery,” LSU junior Travis Daniels said Friday in the Superdome, as the Tigers began final preparations for Sunday night’s BCS title game against Oklahoma.

“Let’s say you won $200 million and somebody else had the same winning ticket and took a piece of that. Would you give it to him, as long as you got your share?”

Of course you would. And in that vein, the winner of the Sugar Bowl will share the national championship with USC, perhaps not gladly but certainly not begrudgingly.

The top-ranked Trojans most likely earned the Associated Press national title with Thursday’s 28-14 Rose Bowl victory over Michigan, but a BCS championship crystal football trophy will still go to the LSU-Oklahoma winner, and that means plenty to the Tigers and Sooners.

“If we win, 10 years from now I would tell people we won the national championship,” LSU senior defensive tackle Chad Lavalais said. “If we got rings made, they wouldn’t say split national champions.”

LSU Coach Nick Saban said he would not be distracted by the BCS controversy and reiterated that USC’s Rose Bowl win will not detract from the Sugar Bowl.

“I was so interested in the USC game that I didn’t even watch it,” Saban said. “All these questions make for great media controversy, but it means nothing to us. The two teams the BCS chose are going to play in this game, and in no way does that diminish our game.... Because the system can’t accommodate three teams, we all need to be willing to accept the fact there will be co-champions.”

Oklahoma defensive lineman Dusty Dvoracek said the only way to eliminate the controversy is to implement some kind of playoff system, and several Sooners said they would relish the chance -- if they beat LSU -- to meet USC in an uber-national title game.

“I would like to crush all this talk,” Oklahoma defensive lineman Tommie Harris said. “If we beat LSU, and they asked me right after the game if I’d go play USC, I would. We want to show the world we’re No. 1.”

For now, the Oklahoma-LSU winner will have to settle for being No. 1-A. Or 1-B. Which isn’t all that bad.

“My hat’s off to USC -- they’re going to be AP champs, they’re very deserving, and anything they get is well-deserved,” Dvoracek said, before nodding toward the BCS championship trophy, which was displayed on the Superdome field about 50 yards away. “But look at that crystal ball over there. It’s sparkling. You can see if from here. And it’s here, not at the Rose Bowl.”

*

Some 200,000 fans from Baton Rouge, home of LSU, and from all around the state of Louisiana are expected to descend on New Orleans this weekend, even though most won’t have tickets to the Sugar Bowl.

Many are coming to partake in the revelry surrounding LSU’s bid to win the school’s first national football championship since 1958. Fearful it might be another 45 years before their next title shot, Tiger fans don’t want to miss this one.

“New Orleans would just erupt if we won the game,” said Lavalais, who grew up in tiny Marksville, La. “Bourbon Street, the Canal, Baton Rouge, Shreveport ... the whole state would just explode. They’re hungry for a national championship.”

What would Bourbon Street be like after an LSU victory?

“Man, you’d probably have to wear body armor down there,” said LSU offensive tackle Rodney Reed, a West Monroe, La., native. “It would be unlike anything this town has ever seen. It would be crazier than Mardi Gras. I’ve heard some fans say they’re going to streak down Bourbon Street if we win.”

*

For a player who sported a nasty scowl on the cover of Sports Illustrated earlier this season, Harris, Oklahoma’s 6-foot-3, 289-pound junior who has been projected as a high first-round pick if he makes himself available for this year’s NFL draft, sure is a playful guy.

Harris has said he would announce his decision after Sunday’s game, but he had reporters doing double takes Friday when he said, “I’m coming back -- I’m going to play one more year at Oklahoma.”

When did he decide this?

“Just, like, 30 seconds ago,” he said. “I hope Coach [Bob] Stoops will let me back.”

Then Harris began cracking up.

“I’m just playing with you,” he said. “I don’t know yet. What do y’all think I should do?”