In the BCS, the eyes of Texas are looking up at Virginia Tech

You've heard of the two-step.

How about the Texas sit-down?

As in Austin, grab a chair and get a grip on your blood-pressure medication.

The official Bowl Championship Series standings won't be revealed until Sunday, but there is enough information available now to put together a pretty accurate snapshot.

And it's not good news for Texas. Does anyone make a giant foam finger for "We're No. 4"?

The latest unofficial standings from BCS guru have Florida and Alabama on top with one-loss Virginia Tech ahead of Texas, which checks in fourth. Rounding out the almost nailed-down top 10 is Boise State at No. 5, followed by USC, Louisiana State, Ohio State, Cincinnati and Iowa.

How solid are these standings? Well, the only piece of information missing from the formula is one of the six BCS computers, Peter Wolfe, who is holding his standings for the official unveiling.

It didn't matter that Texas got passed for the No. 2 spot by Alabama this week in the Associated Press poll, because the AP is no longer in the BCS formula.

It did matter that Texas got passed by Alabama in the Harris Interactive poll, which is used in the BCS along with the USA Today coaches' poll. Texas remains at No. 2 in that index. Texas is getting hammered right now in two computers. The Longhorns are No. 22 in Jeff Sagarin's ratings and No. 18 in Ken Massey's index.

No need to panic yet, Texas, it's still way before early. We'll be sure to tell you when to panic. Beat Oklahoma this week and, who knows, Sagarin might bump you into the top 10.

It might be a good idea to wait before making travel plans to Pasadena for this year's BCS national title game.

-- Chris Dufresne

chris.dufresne@latimes.com

Twitter.com/DufresneLATimes

Rio de Janeiro or Chicago -- that's the dilemma for soccer fans

Let's see, Rio de Janeiro has Botafogo, Flamengo, Fluminense and Vasco da Gama, to name only four.

Chicago has the Chicago Fire.

Rio has produced the likes of Leonidas da Silva, Romario, Carlos Alberto, Jairzinho, Zico, Ronaldo, the list is endless.

Chicago has produced two guys from Arlington Heights -- Brian McBride and Jonathan Spector.

Rio has the magical Maracana, where you can hear this.

Chicago has Toyota Park, which looks and sounds like this.

So, given all that, why would Southern California soccer fans be rooting for Chicago on Friday morning when the International Olympic Committee board votes in Copenhagen on the site of the 2016 Olympic Games?

Because it would bring the Games to Los Angeles as well, or at least to Pasadena.

If Chicago wins out over Rio, Madrid and Tokyo, the Rose Bowl is one of the projected venues for the men's and women's soccer tournaments, along with a handful of other "remote" sites.

Me? I'm rolling down to Rio regardless.

-- Grahame L. Jones

Photo: Rio de Janeiro. Credit: Antonio Lacerda / European Pressphoto Agency

Joe Paterno talks about newspapers and how much he misses Grantland Rice

Penn State Coach Joe Paterno, who turns 82 in December, has a history of being crotchety with reporters, but he said this week he is still a fan of the ink-stained business.

"I get the paper," Paterno said at his weekly press conference. "I go to the bathroom. I take the paper in there and I can it. I look at it. The first thing I do is look at who died. All right. Second thing I look at are headliners, something that says Paterno is the greatest. I read it. [Laughter.] If it says 'I'm a bum,' I don't even look at it. No, I don't pay attention. What you are today isn't what you're going to be tomorrow, all right? What' you're going to be tomorrow is what you make happen tomorrow."

Modern technology, admittedly, has Paterno stumped. He said at Big Ten media day last summer he didn't know much about new-fangled means of communication.

He referred to Twitter, the hottest micro-blog, as "Twittle-do? Twittle-dee?"

Paterno, though, does still pine for print.

"I read the newspapers," he said. "I feel bad about the way things have gone with the newspaper business, with the guys, with the whatever they call it, computers, getting all that stuff on. Because it's taking away some of the guys, and I think some of the great guys I've known and who wrote well who set a standard for writing. People don't realize guys, they were all sports writers. They were all sports writers first. Grant Rice and those guys."

Grantland Rice, for the record, died in 1954.

-- Chris Dufresne

Photo: Joe Paterno walks on the sideline before the start of a game on September 12. Photo credit: Chris Gardner / Getty Images.

Tennessee's Lane Kiffin has deja-fourth-and-two

Fourth-and-two does not appear to be Tennessee Coach Lane Kiffin’s lucky numbers.

The Volunteers, trailing 19-13, drove to the UCLA two-yard line with just over two minutes to play. On fourth down, Montario Hardesty was stopped for a one-yard gain.

Kiffin, as USC’s offensive coordinator, faced a fourth-and-two situation with a little at stake during the 2006 Rose Bowl, which was to decide the BCS national champion. The Trojans had the ball at the Texas 45 leading, 38-33. On fourth-and-two, LenDale White was stopped for a one-yard gain. Vince Young drove Texas to the winning touchdown.

The common denominator? Reggie Bush wasn’t in Kiffin’s backfield either time.

-- Chris Foster

Chris.foster@latimes.com

Twitter.com/cfosterlatimes

Photo: UCLA kept Tennessee's Montario Hardesty bottled up most of Saturday afternoon. Credit: Don McPeak / US Presswire

Question of the day: Who will be playing in the BCS championship game?

Who will be playing in the BCS championship game at the Rose Bowl? Reporters from across the Tribune family of newspapers will answer this question throughout the day. And we are interested in your comments too, so when you are done reading, chime in!

Nick Matthews, Newport News

Each October, Big 12 South rivals Texas and Oklahoma clash in  Dallas. This season they’ll head 1,400 miles west to stage a Red River Rematch at the BCS title game in Pasadena, Calif. True, the championship contest has never matched teams from the same conference. But there’s no rule against it, and the formula is easy. Sooners-Longhorns I is an epic (overtime, anyone?), neither loses another game, and no other team (spare me Lou Holtz’s Notre Dame hype) emerges undefeated. Oklahoma returns Heisman-winning quarterback Sam Bradford and 1,000-yard rushers DeMarco Murray and Chris Brown from last season’s BCS runner-up. Texas counters with quarterback Colt McCoy, an ornery defense and a boulder on its shoulder — a last-second loss at Texas Tech was the Longhorns’ sole blemish in 2008, and in BCS World, that doomed their Big 12 and national title hopes. Texas’ motto this season: No justice, no peace.

More after the jump

Pac-10 may be close to agreement with Alamo Bowl

It's not official yet, but it appears the Pacific 10 Conference is close to reaching an agreement with the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio that would fill the conference's No.2 bowl slot and knock all other bowl partners down one spot.

The arrangement, starting after 2010 regular season, would pit the Pac-10 against the Big 12 with each team receiving $3 million.

The Pac-10, which went 5-0 in bowls last year, has been criticized by some for not having a strong enough post-season lineup behind the Rose Bowl.

The Alamo Bowl would reportedly knock the Holiday Bowl to No. 3 spot in the Pac-10 order and the Sun Bowl to No. 4.

Holiday Bowl Executive Director Bruce Binkowski, reached on vacation in Montana, said today his bowl, which pays $2.3 million per team, would have to raise ticket prices in an effort to match the Alamo's bid.

"We just didn't feel it was something we wanted to do," Binkowski said. "We'd rather keep our game as affordable as possible for our fans."

Binkowski also emphasized the Alamo deal has not yet been finalized. Pac-10 officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Other Pac-10 bowls that would be affected include the Las Vegas, Emerald, and the Poinsettia.

"It's all about the money now," Binkowski of the Holiday Bowl said. "More power to the Alamo Bowl."

-- Chris Dufresne

twitter.com/DufresneLATimes 

Merry Christmas: Lakers vs. Cavs

Next season's NBA schedule won't be out for a while, but basketball fans can now dream about finding this in their holiday television stocking:

Kobe Bryant and the Lakers versus Shaquille O'Neal, LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

And there are a couple of very good reasons to expect such a matchup:

1) The Lakers have played a marquee Christmas Day game every year since the shortened 1998 season.

2) TV executives love those Kobe vs. Shaq grudge matches, real or imagined. After Shaq was traded to Miami, the Lakers and the Heat played three consecutive Christmas Days, 2004 to 2006.

Hey, in the spirit of what the NHL has done with outdoor games the last couple of years, how about the Lakers and Cavs playing over a portable court at the Rose Bowl -- the first part of a holiday tripleheader: NBA game on Christmas, Rose Bowl football game Jan. 1 and the BCS title game Jan. 7?

Or maybe just stick to that original idea?

-- Mike Hiserman

Photo: Cleveland's LeBron James, left, and Lakers' Kobe Bryant battle for a rebound during a game on Jan. 27, 2008. Credit: Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times

Rose Bowl as a playoff quarterfinal? Not!

Cry if you want, Mountain West Conference, but college football's Bowl Championship Series isn't going away anytime soon.

That seemed to be the message from the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee after a teleconference this week. It scuttled the Mountain West's proposal for an eight-team playoff, with committee Chairman David Frohnmayer issuing a statement afterward that said there was "no overall support" for the plan outside the MWC.

Frohnmayer, the outgoing University of Oregon president, said this latest attempt at changing college football's postseason carried familiar elements of proposals -- even President Obama wants a playoff -- that failed in the past.

"In the last six years, I've read pundits, heard the pronouncements of broadcasters and collected several cubic feet of e-mail printouts from advocates of an NFL-style playoff system," he said in his statement. "Even those that go beyond sound bite certitude share two intertwined and fatal deficiencies: they disrespect our academic calendars and they utterly lack a business plan."

Frohnmayer seemed particularly flabbergasted that anyone might think the Orange, Sugar, Fiesta and Rose bowls would be happy to serve as playoff quarterfinals.

He told USA Today: "They'd wreck the Rose Bowl, which is the most storied bowl in American history. To say it would be a quarterfinal destination is ridiculous."

The next BCS national title game will be played Jan. 7, 2010 at the Rose Bowl, six days after the annual Rose Bowl game.

--Mike Hiserman

Mitch Dorger to resign as Rose Bowl CEO at end of season

Mitch Dorger, who will turn 63 in September, said today he will step down as the Rose Bowl's chief executive officer after the bowl hosts this season's Bowl Championship Series national title game on Jan. 7, 2010.

"It seems like a good time to do it," Dorger said.

The Rose Bowl will host its traditional game on Jan.1 this season and then the BCS title game a week later. Dorger said a search committee has been retained to find his successor.

Dorger has spent a decade as the game's CEO and helped usher the Rose Bowl through the complicated and controversial era of the BCS, which began in 1998. 

"I've always been a believer of changing out people to keep the energy of the organization fresh," Dorger said. "I think it will be good for the organization."

-- Chris Dufresne

Rose Bowl moving to ESPN starting in 2011

The Rose Bowl, the Granddaddy of college football bowl games, is moving to cable.

The venerable bowl game's switch to ESPN, starting in 2011, became inevitable last year when ESPN outbid Fox for the next four-year cycle of the Bowl Championship Series package. That put all BCS bowl games under the same network umbrella.

In the current four-year cycle, which ends this season, Fox owns broadcast rights to the Fiesta, Orange and Sugar bowls while the Rose Bowl maintained a separate contract with ABC that runs through the 2013 season.

The Rose Bowl will host two games this year on ABC, the Jan.1 game and the BCS national title game  Jan. 7.

Starting in 2011, parent Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC and ESPN, takes over coverage of all four BCS games.

“Having all BCS matchups on one home, especially within ESPN’s year-round college football environment, is the very best scenario,” John Wildhack, ESPN executive vice president for programming and acquisitions, said in a released statement. “Fans will welcome ESPN's all-encompassing approach, and the additional opportunities and value resulting from our multi-platform presentation will benefit the college football community and our business partners.”

 

-- Chris Dufresne

Photo: The Rose Bowl. Credit: Los Angeles Times archives