Mad season: LSU's upset of Tennesse was the last in a series of unexpected results that rocked the BCS and rewarded Nebraska

Sporting News, The, Dec 17, 2001 by Tom Dienhart

Up is down. Left is right. Good is bad. Black is white. Forward is backward. Welcome to the bizarro world of college football 2001.

Each of the past three weeks was maddening. Every time it appeared the national championship picture was coming into focus--bam!--a jarring hit was delivered. The final blow last Saturday was LSU's 31-20 win over Tennessee in the SEC championship game. It was an appropriate punctuation to three crazy weeks. Let's review:

* November 23. Nebraska, poised to play for the national title in the Rose Bowl if it wins at Colorado and in the Big 12 championship game, is blown out by the Buffaloes. Scratch Nebraska and pencil in Oklahoma.

* November 24. Oklahoma, in position to play for the national championship if it beats Oklahoma State and then Colorado in the Big 12 title game, loses, at home, to the Cowboys. Scratch Oklahoma and pencil in Florida, which needs to beat Tennessee and win the SEC title game to play for the national title.

* December 1. Tennessee ends a 30-year drought at Florida with a win over the Gators. Scratch Florida and pencil in Texas, which must beat Colorado in the Big 12 title game to advance to the national championship.

* December 1. Only hours after Florida loses to Tennessee, Texas loses to Colorado. Scratch the Longhorns and pencil in Tennessee, which must beat LSU in the SEC title game to advance to the national championship.

* December 8. Tennessee loses to LSU in the SEC title game. Scratch Tennessee and pencil in ... Nebraska?

That's right. We're back where we Started--with the Cornhuskers poised to play for the national championship January 3. All the while, Miami watched the craziness unfold from its perch atop every poll. But even the Hurricanes had a close call late, beating Virginia Tech, 26-24, December 1.

Everyone involved with the Bowl Championship Series should give thanks for Miami, the only school that brought any order to what has been a chaotic national title hunt. The 11-0 Hurricanes secured the No. 1 spot in all the polls after thumping Syracuse on November 17. There's no doubt Miami is the nation's top team, but as the season came to a close, the race for No. 2 looked like a preschooler's finger painting.

This is the last thing the love-starved BCS needed. The system has been scrutinized and criticized since its birth before the 1998 season. That year, all went well. Florida State met Tennessee for the national title in the Fiesta Bowl. And everyone gave a thumb's up in 1999 when Florida State played Virginia Tech for all the marbles in the Sugar Bowl.

But things turned sour last year when Miami was denied a chance to play Oklahoma for the national title in the Orange Bowl. Florida State, which lost to Miami during the regular season, was awarded a spot in the game instead.

The BCS tweaked its formula in the offseason to account for head-to-head competition, but the result was a contrived bonus-points system that only muddled matters. At the end of the regular season, both Oregon and Colorado appeared more worthy than Nebraska of playing Miami for the national title. But the BCS standings favored the Cornhuskers.

Never has one team accomplished so much by sitting idle. The same can be said for Nebraska's quarterback. Eric Crouch's Heisman hopes appeared to be trashed after the Cornhuskers' 62-36 flogging in Boulder. But in the weeks between the Huskers' loss and the award announcement, Crouch hung out and watched three other quarterbacks--Oregon's Joey Harrington, Miami's Ken Dorsey and Florida's Rex Grossman--fail to impress Heisman voters.

Just minutes before kickoff of the SEC title game, Crouch--almost by default--was handed the Heisman. Almost four hours later, Crouch and the Huskers--almost by default--were handed a trip to the Rose Bowl.

It's difficult to imagine the public embracing a Nebraska team that backed its way into the Rose Bowl. Yes, the Cornhuskers are 11-1. But the magnitude of their season-ending smothering at Colorado left a big smudge on their resume. Furthermore, how can a team that didn't play in its conference championship game, let alone win it, be national title-worthy? Where is Don King when you need him? On second thought, the BCS already has its promoter. SEC commissioner Roy Kramer, a central force in founding the BCS, spun the chaos for all it was worth.

"That's all great because people are talking about college football" Kramer says. "This has been one of the great three or four weeks in college football history, and it has been regular-season football."

As opposed to playoff football, which the rest of the modern--and sane--world wants and is used to from high schools to small colleges to the NFL. Instead, we are left with the insanity of a team that is ranked No. 4 in both major polls playing for the national title. And that means there is the crazy possibility of a split championship if Nebraska beats Miami.

Though the ESPN/USA Today poll is committed to making the winner of the Rose Bowl the national champion, The Associated Press poll is under no such obligation. That means the winner of the Oregon-Colorado matchup in the Fiesta Bowl might be tabbed No. 1 by the AP. It's not that loony of a notion.