ShareThisBy JOHN TUCKER
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
If ever there were a college football season to make you believe pipe dreams can come true, this is it.
Whoever could have imagined:
_ Louisville AND Rutgers in the national championship hunt, while perennial title contenders Miami and Florida State fight for bowl eligibility with 5-4 records?
-_Wake Forest, Maryland and Georgia Tech displacing ACC heavyweights Florida State, Miami and Virginia Tech as the frontrunners for the conference title. And the Demon Deacons having the best overall record (8-1) of them all?
_ Arkansas as the only SEC team with an unbeaten (5-0) conference record, reeling off eight straight wins after getting crushed by Southern Cal, 50-14, in their home opener... And climbing to No. 11 in the polls, after being unranked until the seventh week of the season?
_ Georgia losing four of its last five games after starting the season at 5-0 and being ranked in the top 10?
_ First-time head coach Chris Peterson keeping Boise State (9-0) on course for a Fiesta Bowl bid, while (1-9) Colorado has fallen apart under former Boise coach Dan Hawkins.
_ Iowa, one of the preseason favorites to contend for the Big 10 crown, free-falling from the polls and sitting in seventh place in the conference after losing four of its last six games. The Hawkeyes were ranked 13th in the polls after a 4-0 start.
It has been a season loaded with surprises, but it was nice to see the BCS standings didn't spring one on Louisville this week.
Jumping the undefeated Cardinals over the once-beaten Florida Gators and into the No. 3 spot in the BCS rankings was definitely warranted.
Reason, however, isn't something you can always count on in the crazy world of the BCS. Which is why there was so much speculation about Louisville's 44-34 victory over then No. 3-ranked West Virginia last Thursday, and whether it would be enough to lift the No. 5-ranked Cardinals over the No. 4-ranked Gators.
Twice in the eight-year history of the BCS, its convoluted computers and/or those sometimes incredibly irrational polls messed up miserably... Teams that didn't even win their conference titles (Nebraska in 2001 and Oklahoma in 2003) got to play in the BCS national championship game. No surprise that both lost.
Just like it wouldn't have been a huge surprise if Florida had moved up to No. 3 in this week's standings. Fortunately, that didn't happen... Except in the USA Today coaches poll. No surprise there. Especially with all the boneheads bashing the Big East of late.
They're probably not aware the Big East's big three _ Louisville, Rutgers and West Virginia _ are 7-0 versus teams from other BCS-affiliated conferences. The Big East, as a whole, is 11-5.
A 12-0 Big East team would deserve a spot in the BCS title game _ it's that simple.
Three of the Cardinals' remaining four opponents, including 8-0 Rutgers, have winning records. So it's not likely Florida or any other one-loss team could overtake an unbeaten Louisville in the final BCS standings.
If the Cardinals suffer a loss, however, the BCS debate will rage anew. Which one-loss team would be most deserving of a title shot? Plenty of teams would be lobbying their case. You can bet on that.
The loser of the Ohio State-Michigan game, especially if it's the No. 1-ranked Buckeyes, would probably have the best case for a rematch. And what would the BCS do if No. 13 Rutgers somehow managed to run the table? Wouldn't the Scarlet Knights deserve the same BCS treatment Louisville has gotten?
The NCAA Rules Committee needs to get busy in the offseason and clean up the mess it created with all those new clock-change rules. They were designed, with too little thought, to speed up the game.
Committee members should feel embarrassed after seeing the way Wisconsin's new coach Bret Bielema manipulated their new kickoff rule last Saturday against Penn State.
With 23 seconds remaining before halftime, Bielema had his kick team intentionally go offsides twice to run out the clock. The new rule starts the clock when the ball is kicked, instead of when it's touched by the return team.
Ironically, in this case, it no doubt lengthened the game. The Badgers had to set up for three consecutive kickoffs.
According to Ty Halpin, the NCAA's associate director for playing rules administration, officials have been instructed to issue unsportsmanlike conduct penalties if they believe the offsides are clearly intentional.
It couldn't have been more clear in Wisconsin's case: All the players, with the exception of the kicker, were offsides before the ball was kicked. Both times.
Yet no penalty was called. Not surprising when you consider the sorry state of officiating this season on the field and in the replay booth..
The crew officiating the LSU-Tennessee game last Saturday made a terrible blunder that could have cost the Tigers a win if they hadn't scored a touchdown with nine seconds remaining.
On an LSU punt in the second quarter, the ball deflected off the hand of Tennessee's Demetrice Morley near the Vols' end zone. LSU's recovered it, but the play was erroneously ruled a touchback, and replay officials failed to overturn the call, despite a review of video evidence that clearly showed Morley's hand touching the ball. You could even see the ball's trajectory change after the contact.
Flagrant officiating errors, especially the inexcusable ones in the replay booth, are happening far too often. The overseers need to get it cleaned up, in a hurry.
(Contact John Tucker at jtucker@unionleader.com)
