The more the Bowl Championship Series re-invents itself to eliminate controversy, the more college football's national-title system seems to find just that.
The BCS will stage No. 1 USC vs. No. 2 Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl championship game, but the expected title-game absence of unbeaten Auburn was merely the first of two fuses lighted Sunday.
A summer of BCS tweaking gave more weight to the two media polls in the BCS standings, and that weight knocked California out of the Rose Bowl and put Texas in.
While Auburn was matched against Virginia Tech in the Jan. 3 Sugar Bowl, the Longhorns became the Rose Bowl's sudden addition to play Michigan on New Year's Day.
Fiesta Bowl officials had a right to keep Texas from going to Pasadena. They passed and invested instead in Utah to play Pittsburgh. Urban Meyer has already taken the coaching job at Florida but has been given the green light to coach his Utes, the first non-BCS conference team to earn a spot in the eight-team bowl system.
"I'm not going to defend my team. We're here," Meyer said. "We're going to bring everybody from Salt Lake."
Fallout from Texas' last-day fortune reached Orlando, where the Champs Sports Bowl lost its Big 12 team (Colorado) and picked up Big East co-champion Syracuse to play Georgia Tech.
Orlando's New Year's Day game, the Capital One Bowl, was unscathed. LSU accepted an invitation to play Iowa in a game that already is sold out, bowl officials said.
Miami will make its first appearance in the Peach Bowl, which assures fans the third Miami-Florida game in as many seasons.
Meanwhile, Oklahoma will make its third BCS title-game appearance in five years.
"We have intentionally gone out and worked to strengthen our schedule. We understand a little of how it works," Oklahoma Coach Bob Stoops said. "I know the strength-of-schedule component was diminished a little bit this year, but it was still a factor. We've won a fair number of games, too, and that can't be overlooked. Going undefeated through the regular season in two straight years helped."
BCS coordinator Kevin Weiberg said there were no discussions Sunday about matching unbeaten Utah against unbeaten Auburn in the Sugar Bowl. After the top-tier bowl picks were made, no bowl, no conference commissioner and no one from TV partner ABC raised any objections."There was a feeling that there's a lot of excitement about the Auburn-Virginia Tech matchup," Weiberg said. "I think ABC felt like (all four of) these matchups were good in terms of potential ratings."They weren't so good on Auburn's emotions.
"We're disappointed," Auburn Coach Tommy Tuberville said. "I think we deserve to play for a national championship. We started out basically off the map, and we caught everybody but the teams that were 1 and 2 all along. Oklahoma has a right to be in Miami and so does USC. But so do we."
Virginia Tech Coach Frank Beamer sympathized about the SEC champions' plight.
"You go undefeated in that league," Beamer said, "you deserve to play for a national championship."
It's not out of the realm of possibility Auburn can win a share of the national championship, its first of any kind since 1957. The Tigers' best scenario figures to involve them whipping No. 8 Virginia Tech soundly in the Sugar, then three days later having No. 2 Oklahoma beating USC in a close game.
Such a scenario automatically would give Oklahoma the BCS title, but the media members who vote in The Associated Press poll could elevate Auburn ahead of Oklahoma based on postseason performance.
If that happened, college football would have its second split title in a row. Last year, LSU beat Oklahoma to win the BCS crown, but USC was voted No. 1 in the AP poll.
"It worked out last year that the team that was left out (of the BCS title game) got to share in the national title," LSU Coach Nick Saban said. "Auburn may not be as fortunate."
Meanwhile, Cal's streak without Roses - dating to 1959 - will extend another season. Ironically, the Bears won Saturday but lost in victory. Their methodical 26-16 victory at Southern Miss gave the Bears a 10-1 record, but the 10-point margin evidently was too close for voters in the AP and ESPN/USA Today polls. Cal lost ground in both polls and also in the computer polls, and the Bears lost their automatic BCS eligibility, slipping instead to the Holiday Bowl to play Texas Tech.
"The bottom line: Whatever formula we have at the end of the day is probably going to have some criticism in some shape or form," said Weiberg, who also is commissioner of the Big 12. "I don't think there are any regrets about it (the off-season changes) at this point, but I think it's something we're going to have to take a look at.
"Clearly the results of games (Saturday) were important in how voters thought about these teams, particularly Texas and Cal."
Cal lost 11 points in the AP poll and 28 in the coaches poll, while Texas picked up 12 points from the media and 15 from coaches even though it did not play.
