Dec. 4, 2005
By Dennis Dodd
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer
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Bowl schedule
A Senate commerce subcommittee will hold hearings Wednesday promising a "comprehensive review" of the BCS.
Hey, Mack Brown, could you do a favor for Texas Rep. Joe Barton and put those roses away during this week's hearings? (AP)
Talk about bad timing.
Joe Barton, a Republican from Texas, is chairing the hearings. The red stater should be red-faced right about now.
Are these guys even on the same planet as us?
This just in: The BCS worked, suits. Spectacularly.
For the fourth time in eight years, we have ourselves a "clean" game. The nation's only two undefeated teams playing for the undisputed title.
That's a .500 batting average. Or, put in terms the non-football toting Bush would envy, a 50 percent approval rating.
"I don't really know precisely why we're having this hearing," BCS coordinator Kevin Weiberg said.
It's not often you get this much clarity in a postseason system that has been as muddled as the tax code. Who wants to bet right now The President (Reggie Bush) could beat the president in a runoff?
The four BCS games lined up easier than Tiger Woods eyeing an uphill one-footer for birdie.
We've got a game for the ages (USC-Texas in the Rose) and a game for the aged (Joe Paterno vs. Bobby Bowden in the Orange). We've got the return of Notre Dame (vs. Ohio State) led by -- if the right combo of juniors heads for the draft -- the 2006 Heisman front-runner, Brady Quinn.
We've got Georgia vs. West Virginia in Georgia at the Georgia Dome, thanks to Katrina. That's significant because the Bulldogs haven't had to leave the state to play since before Halloween.
Which would be more impressive if USC hadn't spent more time lately in California than The Governator. When the Rose Bowl kicks off, the Trojans will have spent the last 74 days of the season in their home state.
The Big Ten co-champs are getting so used to the desert (three times in the past four years in the Fiesta) that they might as well open an extension campus. The Ohio State University-Scottsdale?
Guest lecturer: Maurice Clarett on how to expand those career options.
Three years ago, the Rose Bowl was furious that the Orange Bowl exercised a little-known selection rule to hijack USC and Iowa and divert them to South Florida.
Two years ago, USC had every right to be disappointed to be in Pasadena. The school felt it was dealt the ultimate injustice. It got shut out of the BCS title game in the Sugar Bowl where Oklahoma, coming off a Big 12 title game loss, played LSU.
A year ago, Paterno was too stodgy, too conservative, too old. A week ago, Bowden was being put out to pasture.
Now? The AARP wants to become an Orange Bowl title sponsor.
The Granddaddy that went 100 years without Longhorns can use same shovel it did last year. Bevo is back.
USC doesn't need a hotel, it needs gas money. It worked three months for the right to drive 15 miles to play in Pasadena for its third consecutive national championship in what is essentially a home game.
Apparently word hasn't reached the Beltway that Texas is about to get its biggest windfall since a drill bit hit decomposed fossils. The Longhorns can win a national championship. Soon after, Texans might celebrate the addition of a new Bush.
Reggie just needs to keep running, and Houston's forlorn NFL franchise needs to keep losing.
Yo, Joe, we got your anti-trust right here, pal. Any hint of controversy was muted Sunday. Ten-and-one Oregon was stoned finally and absolutely thanks to Kansas State.
Huh? Stay with us here. The Buckeyes automatically qualified for the Fiesta Bowl because of a rule put in after the first year of the BCS in 1998. That year, the Wildcats were 10 minutes from clinching a berth in the Fiesta Bowl. They blew a fourth-quarter lead in the Big 12 championship game in overtime and plummeted from undefeated to unwanted in the Alamo Bowl.
The BCS did come to its senses long enough to adopt the so-called "Kansas State Rule." A second team from a major conference gets a BCS bowl if it finishes third or fourth in the final BCS standings.
When LSU and Virginia Tech lost, the Bucks moved up to No. 4. Sorry, Ducks. Just playing by the rules.
The Orange features the game's two winningest coaches. Their combined careers basically could masquerade as the 20th century. After swapping incontinence stories before kickoff, Paterno (with 259) and Bowden (253) will continue to put the all-time victories record out of reach.
The team with the best future might be West Virginia. The Mountaineers are loaded with young talent. Plus, the Big East isn't exactly a minefield. Win or lose the Sugar Bowl, they should start 2006 in the top 10 and be a national championship contender.
Things get worse next year, at least from a grandstanding politician's standpoint. The BCS expands to the double-hosting model, actually becoming more inclusive.
Next season will conclude with five BCS games to better accommodate the unwashed masses -- also known as the 56 non-BCS schools.
There will be two Fiesta Bowls in January 2007. No kidding. One for the national championship game and one just for Ohio State.
Yes, kidding.
So what's there to talk about on Wednesday? Beyond C-Span needing programming, not much.
But we'll give Weiberg a dollar if he wags a finger at the subcommittee and takes a solemn vow about never having taken steroids.
At least the BCS is clean.
<a href='http://www.sportsline.com/print/collegefootball/story/9077297/2' target='_blank'>Dennis Dodd</a>
