Great Debate Is Good for the Game

We all know the bowl championship series is a dopey decimal system, a more consistent daily irritant than pollen or Lee Corso. But also know this: the BCS is working.

The worst thing for the good of the game has become the best thing for promoting it. That was the plan all along, don’t you see?

Controversy equals interest. Interest translates to television. Television generates ratings. Ratings generate revenue. Revenue generates 500-page media guides. Think about it.

If there was a 16-team playoff in college football, the most logical way of resolving dispute, all the teams in the BCS top 15 would only now be posturing for postseason position. It would be, heavens forbid, just like the NFL!

As it stands, because of the BCS, the next month promises to be enthralling, with schools in the national title race breathlessly awaiting every quartile hiccup in the weekly BCS standings. You could almost tease the BCS the way they do daytime serials.

Cue the organ music:

Will Miami win this week and still lose ground in the BCS? Will UCLA’s dream season end at Stanford? Can ratings man Jeff Sagarin manage to keep four-loss Kansas State in his top 50? How long can BCS rankings guru David Rothman justify rating Division II Grand Valley State ahead of South Carolina, Brigham Young, Florida State and Auburn? Tune in this week ... In a playoff system, would we honestly be as interested in the games?

Check out BCS programming for the next month or so:

Saturday: Oklahoma at Nebraska, Maryland at Florida State, Oregon at Washington State, UCLA at Stanford.

Comment. Five of the eight remaining undefeated teams are involved and only the winner of Oklahoma-Nebraska is guaranteed to stay that way. In a fell swoop, Florida State, Oregon and Stanford can end the national title dreams of Maryland, Washington State and UCLA. Oklahoma-Nebraska?

“It’s almost like a mini-national championship,” Nebraska quarterback Eric Crouch said this week. “I’m very aware what falls into play after this game.”

Nov. 3: UCLA at Washington State. Anyone in August have this potential Rose Bowl elimination game circled on your Pacific 10 calendar?

Didn’t think so.

Nov. 10: Oregon at UCLA, Miami at Boston College, Texas A&M; at Oklahoma, Kansas State at Nebraska, Clemson at Maryland. Comment: Five reasons you don’t have to leave the couch.

Nov. 17: Syracuse at Miami, UCLA at USC, Virginia Tech at Virginia, Washington State at Washington. Comment: Would anyone be shocked if UCLA survived the wrath of Stanford, Washington State and Oregon and then got knocked out of the national title by its cross-town rivals?

Nov. 23-24: Washington at Miami, Ohio State at Michigan.

Comment: Washington is the last team to beat Miami and could be the next. We wrote off Michigan after its fluke loss to Washington, but the Wolverines are a few BCS bounces from getting back in title contention.

Dec. 1: Arizona State at UCLA, Miami at Virginia Tech, Big 12 title game, Notre Dame at Purdue.

Comment: Would anyone be shocked if UCLA survived the wrath of Stanford, Washington State, Oregon, USC and then got knocked out of the national title game by Arizona State? Notre Dame at Purdue might be Irish Coach Bob Davie’s last game.

Dec. 8: Southeastern Conference title game. Important because this game, moved from Dec. 1 after events of Sept. 11, has to be played before the final BCS standings can be released Dec. 9.

Grooming Gruden?

The Jon Gruden-to-Notre Dame rumors are burning up the Internet and you have to acknowledge it’s a fascinating fit and an interesting possibility especially given Gruden has not come close to shooting down the speculation with one of his pained-faced scowls.

Quite the contrary, actually. South Bend Tribune columnist David Haugh tracked down Gruden after a recent Oakland-Indianapolis game and listened intently as Gruden gushed about life under the Golden Dome.

See, as a boy, Gruden’s father Jim was running backs coach under Irish Coach Dan Devine and Little Jon apparently became intoxicated with Notre Dame lore. Blue & Gold Illustrated, a publication devoted to all things Irish, has already reported Davie will be fired at season’s end.

Here are my two problems with the Gruden story.

One: You think Raider owner Al Davis is going to make this easy? Notre Dame’s season ends Dec. 1. If the Raiders go to the Super Bowl, they’ll be playing into the first week of February. You think the Irish can fire a coach in December and wait almost two months before hiring his successor, with February’s all-important national high school signing day looming?

Also, anyone banking on the benevolence of Davis to release Gruden to the Irish as his Rai-duhs are pursuing a Super Bowl title needs only to read one of the several biographies written about the Oakland owner.

And you thought the NFL’s showdown with those New Orleans car dealers was a conflict.

Two: We’re assuming Notre Dame is going to pay Gruden market value, something the Irish have never done for a coach. Davie reportedly makes less than $500,000 annually in base salary. It’s going to take more than passing around a second collection to exceed Gruden’s $1.2-million salary.

Hurry-Up Offense

As the clock struck zero on Penn State Coach Joe Paterno’s 323rd victory Saturday, a very strange thing didn’t happen. As Paterno made his way across the field to greet Northwestern Coach Randy Walker, not one Nittany Lion player congratulated their coach on tying Bear Bryant on the major college all-time victory list.

Not a handshake, not a hug.

Penn State players acted as if it was win No. 32 for Paterno, not 323. You can bet the orders to low-key the occasion came from Mr. Coke-bottle glasses himself.

“It’s been the last thing on his mind,” freshman quarterback Zack Mills, who came off the bench to lead Penn State to the game-winning touchdown in a 38-35 victory, said. “Seriously, he has never brought it up.”

After the game, Jerry Kellar of the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader asked Paterno if he wanted the writers to carry the coach out of the news conference.

Paterno sized up the 6-foot-6, 300-pound Kellar and quipped: “Well, I’m not going to carry you.”

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Penn State’s 38-point, 501-yard outburst against Northwestern underscored how inept the 1-4 Nittany Lions had been.

Penn State had scored only 31 points in four previous games. Matt Senneca’s 16-yard scoring pass to Eric McCoo with 10:56 left in the second quarter was Penn State’s first first-half touchdown. McCoo’s seven-yard scoring run later in the quarter was the Nittany Lions’ first rushing touchdown.

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Uh-oh, it could be time for another in-house investigation regarding Texas-UCLA rankings. Two of the eight BCS computer operators have Texas ranked ahead of UCLA in the first standings. Rothman has Texas at No. 4 and UCLA at No. 7 while Sagarin rates Texas at No. 2 and UCLA at No. 5.

Rothman says his ratings consider no outside or subjective information such as home-field advantage or weather conditions. Ax to grind? Rothman lives in the South Bay and regularly attends seminars at UCLA, which he considers one of the nation’s great universities. Conspiracy theorists may have to extrapolate something from the fact Rothman graduated from Wisconsin in the 1950s, but we’re not quite sure what to extrapolate.

Sagarin attended MIT and Indiana. Big Ten bias against Pacific 10?

“The difference between first and 10th place at this stage of the season is insignificant,” Rothman reports, “so I wouldn’t get all hot and bothered at the tiny difference between fourth and seventh.” Rothman said UCLA dipped primarily because prior opponents Kansas, Oregon State and Alabama lost last weekend.

As for Texas, well, how about those Longhorns? Left for BCS beef jerky after its 14-3 loss to Oklahoma on Oct. 6, Texas parlayed a crushing victory against Colorado with Oregon and Fresno State losses to jump two spots to No. 7 in this week’s AP poll and check in at No. 6 in the first BCS standings. Texas is a longshot to get back in the national title picture because it needs Oklahoma to lose twice to win the Big 12 South Division and advance to the Dec. 1 conference title game, but the Longhorns at 10-1 would be a cinch to secure an at-large berth to a $13-million BCS bowl.

So much for the rap that Texas Coach Mack Brown can’t win a big game. That 44-14 victory against North Carolina in September is looming larger given the Tar Heels have won five in a row after an 0-3 start and have crushed Florida State and Clemson.

Of course, Brown didn’t know it was a big game at the time.

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Nice to see that Kansas State finally fell out of Sagarin’s top 25 this week after falling to 2-4 with its loss Saturday to Texas A&M.; Last week, at 2-3, Kansas State remained No. 23 in the Sagarin Ratings, ahead of 5-1 South Carolina (25), 4-1 Georgia (29) and 5-1 Auburn (37), fresh off its upset of No. 1 Florida.

Sagarin dropped Kansas State to No. 41 this week, still 10 spots better than the Wildcats’ overall BCS ranking of 51.

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This year’s Heisman race has sort of an Agatha Christie feel. The candidates are disappearing quickly, one by one. Florida’s loss to Auburn two Saturdays ago dashed quarterback Rex Grossman’s hopes.

Last weekend, Oregon quarterback Joey Harrington, Fresno State quarterback David Carr and Clemson quarterback Woodrow Dantzler got the Heisman stiff arm. The top names left are Miami quarterback Ken Dorsey, UCLA tailback DeShaun Foster and Nebraska quarterback Eric Crouch. Harrington’s exit actually bolsters the Pac-10’s chance to claim its first Heisman Trophy winner since Marcus Allen in 1981.

A protracted Harrington-Foster battle would have split votes among West Coast voters and likely would not have landed either player the trophy.