It appears USC, Louisiana State and Oklahoma are the best teams out there right now and that could ultimately lead to a contentious three-way battle for two spots in the Bowl Championship Series championship game.
These three power franchises have outscored five opponents by the total of 261-40.
The BCS title game this year is in the Louisiana Superdome.
Nick Saban is a coach in the Southeastern Conference.
Oh . . . my . . . God.
Is it 2003 all over again?
No one wants a repeat of that farce. College football wouldn't see another year like it until . . . 2004.
Refresher: USC finished No. 1 in both polls in 2003 but ended up No. 3 in the final BCS standings, leading to split national titles, cries of voter fraud and a long-distance screaming match from Los Angeles to Baton Rouge that continues to this day.
LSU defeated Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl to win the BCS crown while USC claimed the Associated Press title.
That season gave us the Chicago-election moment of 34 voting coaches, under mandate from their governing board, dropping USC as No. 1 in their poll after the Trojans won their bowl game.
Now, you could almost justify that skulduggery if USC was going to beat Michigan in the Rose Bowl this year.
The idea that Doomsday II may be on the horizon is what we like to call premature speculation. There are (Les) Miles to go before we sleep.
Yet, we've discovered in the BCS that, generally, what can go wrong will go wrong. In 2003, when informed USC could be No. 1 in both polls but not in the BCS title game, a BCS official mused: "That can't happen . . . can it?"
Salacious seeds have already been sown. War between the Pacific 10 and Southeastern conferences is raging. LSU Coach Miles inflamed the West/South debate with his disparaging comments about the Pac-10.
So the propaganda campaign is on, on both sides of Continental Divide, and spin influences votes.
ESPN talking heads in Baton Rouge were already fomenting Saturday night that LSU, not USC, is really the best team in the country.
Sentiment -- or is it sediment? -- is already seeping into the minds of poll voters. The Trojans stayed No. 1 Sunday but lost 19 first-place votes in the AP poll and seven in the USA Today coaches' poll.
The website BCS Guru, which is tabulating unofficial weekly standings in advance of the official first release on Oct. 14, reports that LSU jumped USC into the No. 1 spot this week.
