Bowl Championship Series

We're watching the BCS championship game together Monday night in Lane Kiffin's USC office -- you know, the game the Trojans were going to be playing in Miami. It sounds silly, if not ridiculous, after the kind of season the Trojans have just experienced, but five months ago Kiffin and others were voting USC the No. 1 team in the country. Right now Miami feels millions rather than a couple of thousand miles away, a brooding Nick Saban on the TV screen, a winner of two of the previous three title games.

There has to be a better way, it has to be said, after a weekend spent watching football studio analysts in between timeouts to close all the windows, turn up the thermostat, fire up the tea kettle, pull on an extra sweatshirt and periodically scream at the television, "YOU'RE STUDIO ANALYSTS! GET INSIDE THE STUDIO ALREADY!"

Travis Henry got a chance, Phillip Fulmer got a game ball and Tennessee got back on track. Filling in for Jamal Lewis, who sat out because of a shoulder injury, Henry ran for 179 yards and three touchdowns as the No. 7-ranked Volunteers routed Kentucky, 56-21, Saturday in a Southeastern Conference game at Lexington, Ky.

Turns out it was no joke when someone suggested college football's national championship matchup might be decided by a decimal point instead of a field goal. Despite ranking third in the Associated Press and USA Today/ESPN coaches' polls, UCLA held onto its No. 2 position in Monday's bowl championship series rankings. The top two schools in the four-part BCS formula play for the national title in the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 4.

Commissioners representing the six bowl championship series conferences emerged from a Saturday meeting saying there will a significant change in the way college football's champion will be determined next year. "Without question," BCS coordinator and Big East commissioner Michael Tranghese said. The only question left is how the system will be amended. The six-year BCS erupted into controversy last year when USC finished No.

The first bowl championship series rankings were released Monday night and, surprise, there were no real surprises. The top four schools in the ratings are Florida State, Penn State, Virginia Tech and Tennessee, the exact order in which the schools appear in this week's writers' and coaches' polls. Florida State ranks first in the BCS with a total of 3.55 points, followed by Penn State at 5.75, Virginia Tech at 6.25, Tennessee at 9.73, Kansas State at 10.86 and Florida at 13.21.

Bowl championship series commissioners will conduct a conference call today during which they probably will approve a proposal in which each of the four major bowls will play host to a second game every four years. The format, originally known as "piggyback," is now being called "double-hosting." Beginning in 2006, the Rose, Orange, Sugar and Fiesta bowls each would play host to two games once every four years -- their own bowl and a BCS title game about one week later.

The new 114-person Harris Interactive College Football Poll, unveiled on Monday, got a few voters lighter on Wednesday. Three members of the poll that will replace the Associated Press writers' poll in this year's bowl championship series standings formula -- former coaches Lou Holtz and Gerry DiNardo, and former Pittsburgh quarterback John Congemi -- will not be permitted to participate because ESPN, where they serve as analysts, has cut ties to the BCS.

The Rose Bowl has the nation's marquee team, the one with the 34-game winning streak, going for its third consecutive national championship and trying to complete a wire-to-wire stay at No. 1. But it comes at a price. About $3 million to $4 million, according to Tournament of Roses officials. That's how much less of an impact the Jan.

College football leaders today begin meetings in Scottsdale, Ariz., to continue repair work on the bowl championship series standings. The controversial BCS formula, which is used to select the sport's national title game participants, has been tweaked almost every year since its inception in 1998. This year, however, the BCS faces a unique challenge -- finding a way to choose No. 1 and No. 2 now that Associated Press has pulled its poll out of the standings formula.