Letters: Did BCS really settle anything?

Isn’t Alabama playing Oklahoma State this Monday for the BCS championship?

Sorry, just wishful thinking.

Marc Popkin

Los Angeles

::

LSU was a much better football team than anyone ever realized. It is an incredible feat to be No. 1 in the country virtually all year with one of the worst starting quarterbacks in America.

Tom Lallas

Los Angeles

::

Those two Alabama-LSU games did more to get rid of the BCS system than anything I could have dreamed up.

Ralph S. Brax

Lancaster

::

For a national championship game, it was truly offensive.

Ed Gredvig

Altadena

::

After reading Chris Dufresne’s and Bill Dwyre’s articles about the BCS championship win by Alabama, I honestly don’t think either of them should be allowed to even write about pee-wee football. The BCS championship game is not about watching two teams with absolutely no defense score 100 points. It’s about the two best teams in the country playing for the national title. And there is no doubt these were the two best teams.

I don’t know why both men can’t give credit where credit is due, but I guess they sadly have nothing better to do than “wait until next year”!

Charles Gordon

Santa Monica

::

Note to Les Miles: If you’re going to run your mouth about playing “big-boy football,” you might want to score more than, I don’t know, zero points in your bowl game. As far as I’m concerned, Oklahoma State is the national champion until one of these SEC teams can prove they can stop them.

Jim Cody

North Hollywood

::

I’m bummed. LSU quarterback Jordan Jefferson, who predicted a Tigers victory, couldn’t handle the pressure. Then, Coach Les Miles, who said he had no problem playing his other QB, Jarrett Lee, but Miles wouldn’t bring Lee into the game. Meanwhile, congratulations to Alabama, their defense, their quarterback and their head coach for a fine game plan to whip No. 1 LSU.

But I’m still bummed.

Paul L. Hovsepian

Sierra Madre

Tebow time

Tim Tebow’s thanking Jesus after every successful athletic accomplishment says a lot about him, but not everything. I wonder if he ever kneels and prays for world peace, and the end of famine and disease. He may very well do so, but if not, his priorities are all out of whack.

Michael Gesas

Beverly Hills

::

I am amazed at all the talk of the correlation between Tebow’s numbers and corresponding numbers in the Bible. Let’s see 10 completions correlates to the 10 commandments, two touchdowns to the tablets that Moses carried and how about the 316 yards. Well. if you read the numbers from right to left as Hebrew is read, you come up with 613, the number of commandments in the entire Torah (the Old Testament).

Are you sure his name wasn’t shortened from Tebowitz?

Richard Katz

Los Angeles

::

I understand Tim Tebow’s 3:16 and the coincidence of him gaining exactly 316 yards against the Steelers but with his record as a starter being 8-4 his winning percentage is now .666.

George Sands

Torrance

The readers say ...

Reader Howard Cohen has been saving up his comments on Mark Sanchez [Jan. 7] for three years, but it’s still hard to follow his argument. Because Sanchez led the Jets to the AFC championship game his first two years and missed the playoffs his third year, he should have stayed another year at USC? And because Matt Barkley chose to stay for his senior year, he is going to be proven right? Maybe Barkley stayed because he wasn’t pressured into it by Lane Kiffin, who took a different approach than Pete Carroll did, first begging and then threatening Sanchez to stay. Carroll’s ungracious comments and bad attitude when Sanchez left were one of the low points in his USC coaching tenure.

I have one question for Mr. Cohen: How did Matt Leinart’s decision to stay at USC work out for his NFL career? And no, I’m not related to Mark Sanchez.

Maurice Sanchez

Coto de Caza

::

One of your readers asks how it is possible that Oregon and Washington are not on UCLA’s schedule for the second year in a row. Maybe the schedule maker knows that Oregon and UCLA will meet in the conference championship game, like they did this year (hey, it could happen).

PJ Gendell

Beverly Hills

Hire power

I am very unhappy with Bill Plaschke’s criticism of Jim Mora’s hiring of Sal Alosi [Jan. 11] . I do not know Alosi (or Mora or Plaschke for that matter), I do not know if he is qualified to be UCLA’s strength and conditioning coach, I certainly have no love for the New York Jets or the staff on which Alosi previously served, and, yes, his actions in tripping an opponent during a punt return were an outrage.

Having said that, the man has taken responsibility for what he did and he has been punished. Are we to be so uncharitable, so lacking in compassion, that he cannot now be forgiven and have another chance to do things right? Is that what we have come to as a society? I think not. He did a bad thing. But on the scale of reprehensible things that occur in this world, it is really a pretty minor thing.

Let’s move on.

David Weber

West Hollywood

::

Plaschke’s column on UCLA’s hiring of Sal Alosi is wrong on so many levels. Alosi was fined $25,000 and suspended for tripping a player from the sidelines, a stupid move for which he has apologized and paid dearly. Plaschke calls Alosi “ the perpetrator in the most blatant cheating incident in recent NFL history.”

Bill, do you recall Bill Belichick getting fined $500,000 and the Patriots $250,000 plus the loss of a first-round pick for spying on an opponent?

Bert Bergen

La Canada

Keep shooting

So, people are mad at Kobe for shooting too much. Really? What’s the alternative? More shots for Bynum and Fisher?

What I don’t understand is why Pau Gasol is being wasted. Aside from Kobe, Gasol needs to shoot the ball 15 to 18 times a game. There’s a reason the Lakers have gone over 100 points only once this season. The offense makes no sense and it’s not Kobe’s fault.

Geno Apicella

Placentia

::

::

Kobe Bryant is about as likable as a bad summer cold. But he is also tougher than a two-dollar steak. Never in the history of L.A. sports has a man given it this much, weathered injury, criticism, jurisprudence and anything else lobbed his way. Come game time he fights 48 minutes, period. Without him the Lakers would be battling the Washington Wizards for the worst record in the NBA, so sit back L.A., and enjoy the show.

Marty Foster

Ventura

::

Somewhere in a land far, far away, the Zen Master is sitting in a lotus position and smiling as he asks with his inner voice, “What can Brown do for you?”

Gino Cirignano

Playa del Rey

Penalty box

The NHL does not come up with good ideas very often, so I was pleasantly surprised with the recently proposed realignment.

Leave it to Donald Fehr, the man who thought it was a good idea to cancel a World Series, to shoot it down.

Ron Reeve

Glendora

Land of Ozzie?

It looks like UCLA recruited the wrong Nelson brothers. They should have signed older brother David and his irrepressible younger brother Ricky.

Brent Montgomery

Long Beach

::

The Los Angeles Times welcomes expressions of all views. Letters should be brief and become the property of The Times. They may be edited and republished in any format. Each must include a valid mailing address and telephone number. Pseudonyms will not be used.

Mail: Sports Viewpoint

Los Angeles Times

202 W. 1st St.

Los Angeles, CA 90012

Fax: (213) 237-4322

Email:

sports@latimes.com