LSU makes one fine BC-Mess

"We came to mess things up," said the sign held aloft by one LSU fan in the Georgia Dome last Saturday night, and that the Tigers did. With one victory over Tennessee, LSU scored a broadside hit on the already foundering ship known as the Bowl Championship Series.

If the BCS isn't headed to the bottom quite yet, it's only because of a furious bailout effort that started seconds after LSU sealed its 31-20 win and will continue for the rest of the weeks leading up to the Rose Bowl.

Sunday morning was almost too easy, a writer's dream: LSU provided more than enough BCS-related material to fill the broadcast schedules of however many ESPN channels there are now for days. Commendably in search of a challenge, some turned to other matters, trying to wring some interest out of the ever-more irrelevant NBA and the resignation of New York Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy, or the latest larded contract offer to a baseball free agent. Sue me, I'll take the gimme.

For two years, the BCS worked almost perfectly, producing unbeaten, untied, and generally undisputed national champions. The first: these same Tennessee Volunteers, in 1998, and it may be fitting that the team which helped establish the BCS in the first place could wind up having an awful lot to do with its demise. In 1999, Florida State and Virginia Tech played a fantastic Sugar Bowl that ended with the 'Noles on top in a game that was much closer than the score. Because a slithery and strong-armed redshirt freshman named Michael Vick helped make the game so close, the BCS looked golden.

Oklahoma helped the system dodge a huge torpedo last year by delivering a defensive performance for the ages, essentially shutting out Florida State and its Heisman-winning quarterback. The fact that FSU was even in the game was causing a considerable fuss, since the 11-1 Seminoles had been beaten by Miami, also 11-1, earlier in the season, yet the Hurricanes were somehow relegated to the consolation round in the Sugar Bowl. Had Florida State won the title last year, the chaos could have been tremendous, and the NCAA knew it. But fortune sometimes smiles on even the most misguided of ventures.

Breathing huge sighs of relief at the Sooner victory, the BCS brain trust retreated to their oak-paneled offices to tweak the system by adding more computer polls and rearranging some equations, measures that few outside of NCAA headquarters and NASA's Jet Propulsion Labs really understood. It was better this year, they said, and maybe no one really believed it, but that didn't really start to matter until the college football season started winding down and the carnage began.

Nebraska was all set for the Rose Bowl, needing just to beat Colorado and win the Big 12 title game to book passage for Pasadena. Colorado had other plans, smashing the Huskers in record fashion. That opened the door for Oklahoma, who proceeded to shut it on themselves by losing to Oklahoma State at home. Then Florida was back in, needing only to beat Tennessee at home and win the SEC title game to smell Roses; the Gators lost to the Volunteers. So Texas was ready to jump into Florida's slot, needing only to beat Colorado in the Big 12 title game, but the Longhorns lost to Colorado, 39-37, both because of Texas coach Mack Brown's blind faith in Chris Simms and a complete special teams breakdown. So it was Tennessee's to lose, which brought us to last Saturday. And, of course, the Volunteers lost it. They almost had to.

In the space of three weeks, five national championship contenders have lost their marbles and their games on the field. Now it's Nebraska, last seen in full bloody retreat back to Lincoln, going to the Rose Bowl to take on Miami, by five one-hundredths of a BCS point. Already, fans in Boulder, Colorado and Eugene, Oregon are whipping themselves up into froth. The Colorado Buffaloes, playing perhaps the best football in the country right now, won't be in Pasadena. Neither will the Oregon Ducks, who are 10-1 and actually won their last game.

In the SEC title game, it seemed LSU was so determined, possessed with an almost righteous fire, not just playing for themselves or their fans, but playing for the BCS-oppressed sport itself. How else to explain their ability to overcome a halftime deficit and the loss of two of their best offensive players, QB Rohan Davey and RB LaBrandon Toefield, who both went down with injuries during the game? Truth to tell, it was hard not to root for LSU to strike a blow for freedom, unless you have bright orange blood or had a limb recently chewed off by Mike the Tiger. And now it's hard not to feel glee at the NCAA's predicament, even if you aren't a crusader against the BCS, which I am not. Well, sure, it's a messed up system, but don't kid yourself; college football is not a democracy, it's a banana republic, and the NCAA is the despot in the big plantation house on the hill calling all the shots. My sneaking suspicion is that it'll take a lot more controversy for us to be rid of the thing. It doesn't matter how many sportswriters and fans and coaches and players whine about it, there won't be a true uprising until we can wean college presidents from the corporate-sponsored bowls that pay $10 million a team.

The BCS had to be staggered--nothing that flawed can stand unscathed for long. But expect more words out of NCAA headquarters throughout the next month and into the next year, more rationalizing, more talks of tweaks and nips and tucks in the formula; meanwhile, once again, a team that doesn't deserve it will get a shot at a national championship. And expect more of the same next year.