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The road to Pasadena for college football's national championship has been anything but a smooth ride.
By JOHN C. COTEY, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published December 30, 2001
Thank you, Mike Rumph.
Thank you and that sweet left knee of yours for getting in the way of Brian St. Pierre's pass with 38 seconds left in your team's game against Boston College.
Thank you for your inadvertent gift, which led to a touchdown, which led to your Hurricanes winning 18-7 and did not lead to more chaos than any college football fan could have endured.
Had your knee not gotten in the way, and had the Eagles scored and beaten Miami, and had the Hurricanes then been lumped in with Oregon and Nebraska and Florida and Colorado ... well, it just makes the head hurt to think about it.
Funny how a game that stresses the proper use of hands in catching, passing and running the football comes down to having a champion determined by someone's leg, or in Rumph's case, a knee.
Ask Florida State, which has appeared in all three BCS title games, about the wide right kicks that derailed potential championships, or Nebraska's Shevin Wiggins, who purposely kept a ball in play by kicking it while in the end zone against Missouri in 1997. That "kick" was caught by teammate Matt Davison as time expired; Nebraska won 45-38 in overtime and ended up with a share of the national title. Sometimes, the decision not to kick makes the difference, as in the memorable 1984 Orange Bowl and Nebraska's decision to go for two with 48 seconds left in an eventual loss. This season, Colorado had the ball at Fresno State's 2 with about 3 minutes to play in the season opener. A field goal would have given the Buffs the lead. Instead, quarterback Craig Ochs forced a throw on second down and was intercepted. The Buffaloes lost 24-22.
If only Colorado coach Gary Barnett had known that his team would right itself and the title run of so many teams would become unhinged in the final weeks.
The Buffaloes had a lot to do with that, of course. On Oct. 27, they were ranked No. 25 after a 41-7 loss to Texas. Their title hopes gored, they began a stunning trip back into the national picture, scaling the polls in leaps and bounds after destroying Nebraska 62-36 and beating Texas 39-37 in the final two weeks of the season.
And just like that, 10-2 Colorado had an argument for being included in the national title game; however, that honor went to ... Nebraska, by .05 of a point in the final BCS poll, a margin reportedly determined by Texas Christian's final game win over Southern Mississippi, which improved the Cornhuskers' strength of schedule just enough for Nebraska to slip past the Ducks in bowl standings.
Which means that TCU played a bigger role in setting up the national title game than Colorado's win over Nebraska, or Oregon's 11-1 record.
Therefore, the national title game features Miami and a team coming off a 62-36 loss that wasn't even as close as that score suggests. Nebraska's final bowl ranking prompted Oregon coach Mike Bellotti to compare the BCS to cancer, offending thousands across the country.
While Bellotti might have used the wrong words, he had a right to be frustrated. As the BCS shuffle went on at a dizzying pace in weeks 13, 14 and 15, the Ducks were stuck without a dance partner. Ranked No. 5, Oregon watched Nos. 1 and 3 lose one week, then the No. 2 and 4 team the next week, then the No. 2 team the next week.
As a result, the Ducks moved up one lousy spot.
Then again, Oregon played a relatively weak schedule and blew a 14-point lead at home against Stanford.
Not that the Ducks were the only team to blow a game at home. How about Florida? First, the Gators lost to Auburn (Auburn?), then climbed back into the title picture. Then they lost to Tennessee at the Swamp on Nov. 30. Don't bother trying to figure out how that happened, because that will just lead you to trying to figure out how the Volunteers, back in the title picture, lost the SEC title game the next week to a backup quarterback and backup running back from LSU (LSU?) and dropped from roses to citrus.
Oh, those conference championship games. Had the SEC not had one, it would be Tennessee-Miami in the Rose Bowl. Had the Big 12 not had one, it would be Texas-Miami.
But the Longhorns couldn't close the deal against that pesky Colorado team a second time and ended up with a quarterback controversy and a big in the Holiday Bowl, which is played about two hours south of the Rose Bowl and five days earlier, so that's kind of close to a national title shot, right?
Instead, we have no winners from conference championship games in the title picture.
Conferences in general were tough to figure out this season. LSU was 2-3 before claiming the west and upsetting Tennessee. Illinois lost by 25 to Michigan, but won the Big Ten. Maryland lost to Florida State by 21, but won the ACC. Colorado -- not Nebraska, Oklahoma or Texas -- won the Big 12. Thus, the BCS poll became muddled. As teams were dropping and flopping, Brigham Young was winning and threatening to sue for inclusion in the fun. If 13-0 was good enough for a share of the national title in 1984, by golly, it should be good enough now.
To back up their threats of legal action, the Cougars went out and lit Hawaii up for 45 points in their season finale, a pretty impressive number if the Warriors hadn't scored 72.
Keep in mind, Hawaii also beat Fresno State, which beat Colorado, which beat Nebraska. So if Nebraska beats Miami in the Rose Bowl, maybe Hawaii ought to file a lawsuit for its share of the title?
Okay, so that's a little out there, but that's where the 2001 college football season takes us. Consider this: After Colorado beat Nebraska so handily on Nov. 23, the coaches poll still ranked the Cornhuskers ahead of the Buffaloes.
The next week, after neither team played, Colorado moved ahead of Nebraska.
So if No. 3 Colorado beats Oregon in the Fiesta Bowl on New Year's Day, and No. 4 Nebraska beats Miami in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 3, who's No. 1 in the coaches poll?
No, not Colorado. That would make sense. Nebraska, due to a contractual obligation that says the Rose Bowl winner must be No. 1 in the final poll, gets the nod, potentially giving the Cornhuskers at least a share of the title for the third time (1970, 1997) provided the media don't allow Colorado to be leapfrogged as well.
Which brings us back to Miami and our comfort zone of normalcy. The Hurricanes have already saved the BCS some aggravation by being a consensus No. 1.
Can they do it again by being a consensus national champ?