Call It a Blowout Loss for Cal in the BCS

California’s first trip to the Rose Bowl since 1959 got sideswiped Sunday by, in the words of a depressed Pacific 10 Conference Commissioner Tom Hansen, “bad luck, bad timing and a hurricane.”

Only in the bowl championship series can a team’s bowl destination sound like lyrics to a country song.

Cal got squeezed out of the Rose Bowl by a set of circumstances that probably will never happen again.

“I’m frustrated, not surprised,” Cal quarterback Aaron Rodgers said Sunday. “I’ve been a college football fan all my life, and I’ve seen the BCS. There’s been controversy every year.”

Let’s consider the extraordinary factors here:

Cal finished No. 4 in both polls Sunday but finished fifth behind Texas in the final BCS standings, .8476 to .8347.

Both teams have 10-1 records and both were worthy of the two at-large BCS spots. Only one bid was available, though, because Utah claimed the other when it became the first non-BCS team to finish in the top six.

If Utah doesn’t get the automatic bid, Cal and Texas get the at-large bids.

Tough luck, right?

And bad timing.

You could say the Bears lost the BCS spot to Texas because of a hurricane.

Cal was supposed to play at Southern Mississippi on Sept. 16, but Coach Jeff Tedford called off the trip as Hurricane Ivan zeroed in on the Gulf Coast.

The storm ended up veering north into Mobile, Ala., meaning the game could have been played as scheduled.

Had Cal defeated Southern Mississippi, 26-16, in September, the Golden Bears probably would have held the No. 4 BCS spot had their season ended, on schedule, with a 41-6 victory over Stanford on Nov. 20.

The postponement put Cal on public display Saturday night, with coaches and writers taking a much closer look at the team than it would have in September.

Remember, at the time, Southern Mississippi was coming off a win at Nebraska.

“Tremendous amount of pressure on Cal,” Texas Coach Mack Brown conceded on ABC’s selection show. “... Going on national TV for everybody to see them ...”

Not to be ignored was the fact Brown, with his team already 10-1 in the clubhouse, publicly lobbied coaches and writers to switch their votes from Cal to Texas.

Cal still ended up No. 4 in both polls, but lost enough points in each that Texas’ lead over the Bears in the computers made the difference.

And what is it with hurricanes costing the Pac-10 millions of dollars in BCS bowl bids?

In 1998, remember, Hurricane Georges forced postponement of UCLA’s game against Miami from September to December. The Bruins lost a 49-45 heartbreaker and a chance to play for the national title in the Fiesta Bowl.

Hansen, in fact, had a funny feeling history might repeat when Cal’s game with Southern Mississippi was postponed.

“That was my very first thought,” Hansen said. “Oh my goodness, we have another hurricane delay and the last one cost us dearly.”

It gets worse.

Cal fans and players have a right to be outraged over the fact their team got knocked out of the Rose Bowl as a result of winning its last game.

“There was no reason to believe we wouldn’t go to the Rose Bowl,” Rodgers said.

Cal fans have every right to demand changes in the BCS system to make sure what happened to Cal can’t happen again.

Well, guess what, those changes have already been enacted -- just too late to help Cal.

Starting in the 2006 season, when the new BCS contract kicks in, there will be two additional at-large spots available when the system switches to the “double-hosting” format in which each BCS bowl will stage a second game every fourth year.

In January 2007, for example, the Fiesta Bowl will play host to its game and then a national-title game about a week later. In 2009, the Rose Bowl will play host to two games.

In the new format, there will be no automatic bid for the No. 4 team or for a non-BCS team that finishes in the top six.

In the new format, a school that finishes in the BCS top 12 will be eligible for one of four at-large bids. A non-BCS school will get an automatic bid if it finishes in the top 12.

If the new format were in effect this year, Cal would go to the Rose Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl could match Utah against Texas and everybody but Auburn would walk away happy.

If Cal faced this same scenario in 2006, it would be in the Rose Bowl?

Yep.

If Cal had defeated Southern Mississippi in September it would be going to the Rose Bowl?

Probably.

Hansen could only lament the strange circumstances in summing up Cal’s plight:

“Two years too soon and three months too late,” he said.