Breaking Rank

While it was clear this year's national championship wouldn't be split, there was still plenty of controversy. About the only thing everybody could agree on is that some other match-ups "woulda' been cool."

In the final Associated Press poll, USC was ranked anywhere from 1st to 7th (an eyeball-estimate shows most ballots pegged the Trojans at #2 or #3). I e-mailed a few of the voters to get their insight.

Rodney McKissic of the Buffalo News on picking USC as the best team in the nation and his thoughts on the BCS:

I voted them No. 1 because I truly believe when they are healthy, they are the best team in the country. Ohio State was my No. 1 team at the end of the regular season and USC was No. 2. The Trojans totally dominated Illinois in the Rose Bowl and I didn't believe LSU did enough against Ohio State in the BCS title championship game to justify leap frogging over USC for No. 1. LSU is a great football team, and one of the elite programs in the country but I give USC a slight edge because of its offense. If there was a playoff, no one would want to face a healthy USC team that is dominant on both sides of the ball. And if they were a playoff, USC and LSU would have been a championship matchup for the ages!!!

By and large, the current BCS system doesn't work and we need a playoff. The emphasis is to give us a great national championship game, but the other bowls tend to suffer. A Rose Bowl matchup featuring USC-Georgia is a lot more sexy than Illinois-SC. Or how about Virginia Tech-Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl? This current system is destroying the integrity of the postseason.

Glenn Guilbeau of Gannett Louisiana gave the Trojans their stiffest grade at #7. Asked what methodology he used to rank the teams, he replied,

Body of work. USC lost to a 4-8 team, which I felt made the Trojans not as good as other two-loss teams. That's one of the worst losses ever by a highly ranked team.

Before USC fans rush to judgment, there may be more to that than the growing Louisiana-Southern California rivalry (ironically, USC and LSU have only faced each other twice, in 1979 and 1984). Guilbeau pointed out that, "I've always defended USC for its 2003 national title." Fellow Louisiana journalist Scott Rabaiais of The Advocate (Baton Rouge) put USC second after the BCS Champion Tigers.

Three of the four California writers put LSU on top of their ballot, with the fourth going to Georgia. The three other voters from Pac-10 states also had LSU at #1.

Tom Keegan of the Lawrence Journal gave the Trojans their second worst ballot at #5 (as did a couple other voters). His reasoning?

I ranked USC fifth because the Trojans lost to Stanford and it wasn't in a spelling bee. It was in a football game. It was the worst loss suffered by any of the heavyweights.

Like McKissic, Keegan had strong feelings about the current system:

In my book, the BCS stands for "Bowls Crown Squat." Having an eight-team or 16-team tournament is the only way to go. It already works at lower levels of college football, so there's no excuse not to go to it.

He had one other observation a lot of people around town will agree with:

I love the USC athletic department because of its open-door media policy. Giving reporters access to athletes benefits the reporters, and by extension the fans, but more importantly, benefits the athletes for the rest of their lives.

Amen to that!

As reported earlier on this blog, the L.A. Times does not participate in any polls.

Photo by Anacleto Rapping / LAT

Comments

[Dan]

Who put GEORGIA at #1? SCOTT WOLF! I think he was too busy praying on college girls to watch any football. Here's a link to his Top 25:

http://www.insidesocal.com/usc/archives/2008/01/the-top-25-26.html#more

[PeteCarrollforpresident]

Adam.. Couple of weeks ago you interviewed the women's soccer coach and did a pretty good job. However, you forgot to ask him if there was a plan for a new soccer field or at least rebuilding of Macalister field? Thanks!

[Adam Rose]

PC4P ... Thanks! Part of USC's negotiation with the Coliseum Commission includes the possibility of playing home soccer games there again. We probably can't expect any news on soccer facilities until that's hammered out in (hopefully) the coming weeks. Also, I asked Mike Garrett this weekend about the next big project and he said they're focusing on Heritage Hall expansion.

Obviously the Galen Center stands out among recent projects, and construction is currently underway on a new baseball facility:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/allthingstrojan/2007/10/new-baseball-fa.html

It would be nice to see upgrades to McAlister, but I don't think they're imminent. I'll ask around about it, though. In the mean time, it's a pretty good training ground and a nice, intimate place to watch a game. While it's not capable of handing big matches, the Coliseum did work well for the 2nd round game against Florida.

[pk-in-the-mesa]

to all out there the lsu osu game looked like a pop- warner game compared to sc and anyone we faced i would really like to know the last time sc has lost to a shizekoff SEC team we as fans will take you people on 20th and Orange show up at 230 pm 01/19/08 1st full team picks

[romath]

I give more stock to the football coaches poll. They understand the game and would never make a judgment with the kind of reasoning the two lower ranking writers exhibited.