Sooners Can Hear Voice of the People

Just call it a computer error.

“The American sporting public declared the Oklahoma Sooners unfit for the Sugar Bowl,” wrote Berry Tramel in Monday’s Daily Oklahoman of Oklahoma City. “Sometimes the masses are right.”

Referring to Nebraska’s lopsided loss to Miami in the Rose Bowl two years ago, when it was the BCS championship game, Tramel also wrote, “The Sooners are relegated to the fate of their Nebraska brothers, circa 2001. The Huskers became the poster children for what ails the BCS. Make room for these Sooners.”

Trivia time: Who was the football coach at Oklahoma before Bob Stoops?

Coaching cousins: Several readers e-mailed to ask whether Nick Saban is related to Lou Saban, the former NFL and college coach. They are cousins. In fact, the Louisiana State coach’s full name is Nick Lou Saban. His father, who died at 46 when Saban was a graduate assistant coach at Kent State, his alma mater, was Nick Sr.

Career decision: Saban says he went into coaching because his wife needed to finish graduate school at Kent State and he needed something to do.

Home cooking: Saban told the media in New Orleans that one of the pluses about coaching at LSU is the food.

“When you recruit in Louisiana, everybody cooks,” he said. “There are some great home visits that end up with some great meals.”

Recount requested: A number of USC supporters have e-mailed to suggest, now that the bowl games have been played, that all the data be reentered into the BCS computers to see which team comes out on top.

This is an argument that will never be settled.

The case for LSU: Reader Joe Wiemeyer, who said he is a 1973 USC graduate, e-mailed this: Wins against top-25 teams: LSU 4 (Georgia twice, Mississippi, Oklahoma), USC 2 (Washington State, Michigan). Losses: LSU to 17th-ranked Florida, USC to unranked California. Strength of schedule: LSU 29th, USC 37th.

“What is the argument that favors USC being No. 1?” Wiemeyer asks. “Hometown bias.”

Looking back: On this day in 1994, Nancy Kerrigan was attacked after practice at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Detroit.

Add Kerrigan: Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times, noting that she will be inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame this week, says, “None of the well-wishers, we assume, will tell her to break a leg.”

Trivia answer: John Blake. He was the Sooner coach for three seasons, 1996-98, and his teams went 3-8, 4-8, 5-6.

And finally: Tonya Harding, Kerrigan’s skating opponent who was implicated in the attack, is now boxing professionally. Scheduled to fight in Boise, Idaho, Jan. 24, she told the Idaho Statesman she just wants to be a regular person.

“To be me is very difficult sometimes,” she said. “I may have a bone or two in my closet, but so does everyone else.”

Larry Stewart can be reached at larry.stewart@latimes.com.