Who's Number 1?

Sixteen writers in the AP Poll and one lone coach (of course it was Utah's Kyle Whittingham) gave Utah No. 1 votes in the final polls of the year.

(I know this is a couple days late, but hey, better late than never).

Of course, this is the perpetual problem with the current system and one that many want to change with a playoff system.

Naysayers of the BCS system want a true number one team crowned at the end of the year. No ifs, ands or buts. No questions. No whatifs. No maybe-this-team-should-be-at-the-top. They want a playoff. They want it bad and they looking at the Utes' undefeated season (capped with that win over Alabama) and the debacle in the Big 12 as the rallying cry.

Guess what. That playoff ain't comin', no matter who says they want one (Barack Obama may be able to fix all the troubles in the world--or at least promise he can--but can't fix college football).

Sure Utah had an undefeated season, but really, a team from the Mountain West who's best win came against an uninspired Crimson Tide, that should be the No. 1 team in the country?

And don't give me that "oh the Mountain West is really good" bullshit. The mid-majors were overrated this year. Everyone of them. Except the Utes.

And what about Texas? Should the Longhorns not be considered? Why didn't any coaches break from the AFCA and vote for UT? Because the AFCA threatened to not count votes by coaches who didn't vote for Florida.

Should Utah be No. 1? No, but I would have voted for them. Because, at the end of the day, we all knew that there was no way that the Utes were going to be named No. 1 in the country.

FOX Asks "Where Did All the Offense Go?"

Update 11:02 p.m.: I'm watching ESPN's coverage right now, and it's the same stuff. Thanks sports media for making the whole world think that after Florida and Oklahoma breezed threw some powderpuff defenses that last month of the season, that both offenses are supposed to continue like a well-oiled machine. Right.

Florida won, as I predicted (though it isn't on record. You'll just have to ask my friends).

Not much to say about the game besides that Tim Tebow is a pretty good football player, Percy Harvin is amazing and Sam Bradford might have the softest touch in the college game (that's a good thing).

The game was pretty much ho-hum, which can be a pretty good characterization of all 34 bowl games this year, collectively. Collectively, this bowl season wasn't extraordinary. But that's a post for another day.

What I'll always remember from this BCS National Championship Game is FOX's team (play-by-play guy Thom Brenaman, color guy Charles Davies and the in-studio crew of Chris Rose, Eddie George, Barry Switzer and Jimmy Johnson) kept harping on the fact that both the Gators and Oklahoma were scoring at a lower rate than they normally do.

It's as if the entire FOX crew was expecting a 42-41 shootout. Please.

Look at what teams Florida and the Sooners have played the last couple of months. Oklahoma's last five opponents before the BCS title game was Mizzou, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Texas A&M and Nebraska.

The Gators played Alabama, Florida State, The Citadel, South Carolina and Vanderbilt.

The only quality defensive team in that group of 10 teams is...Bama.

Everyone else (even the Red Raiders) is a defensive pansy.

So when the best two teams, with two pretty good defenses, get together for the championship game, you--FOX--still expect a shootout? Really? And for godsakes, the Gators played THE CITADEL and dropped 70 points on them.

I didn't expect to see a 7-7 game at half. But I for sure didn't expect to see 48-46.

C'mon FOX, at least pretend to show some professionalism.

(There Will Be No) Extra Point:

My friend brought up a good point after the game. He wonders what does Urban Meyer think about Utah's 13-0 season and if the Utes should be given consideration as the No. 1 team in the country.

We both came to the conclusion that, given the circumstances, Meyer has to say Florida has to be given the No. 1 spot in the AP poll, even though he was saying different when he took Utah to a BCS win a few years ago.

The Evil Empire Strikes Again

BCS is coming back to Disney, but it won't be on ABC. ESPN has won the rights to the BCS and the national title game (sans The Rose Bowl) starting in 2011.

Add that to ESPN's lists of conquests, which also includes a 15 year deal with the SEC.

I kind of address why something like this is bad for sports when I talked about how ESPN shoved the lameass, not-so-exciting, did-anyone-other-than-old-white-guys-pay-attention-to-this Ryder Cup in the summer.

The same goes here. ESPN is slowly becoming a monopoly and is slowly becoming the place for sports and sports entertainment. I have no no problem of the "World Wide Leader in Sports." I do have a problem when it acts as if it (ESPN) should be the only place anyone can go to watch quality sporting events on television.

Again, it's all about the money. Sure, ESPN, in its own press release, sites that 86 percent of televisions in America have basic cable, which ESPN is on. But what about that other 14 percent? With the BCS exclusively on ESPN starting in 2011, it gets to charge higher fees to cable companies in order to carry ESPN, which in turn leads to higher cable bills for all of us.

But shouldn't everyone get to watch the biggest games of the year?

And even ESPN wants the rights to the English Premier League in the United States.

I am sure that ESPN won't stop until it has every major league signed to a deal that lets the network show their games.

In the world of television sports, ESPN is the Yankees. No, they're worst. They're the Yankees without the competition. Because ESPN has been branded as the sports network in America, other networks like Fox Sports or Comcast Sports have no chance of breaking through.

When the average American thinks sports they think baseball, football, cheerleaders and ESPN.

At least the Yankees lose every now and then. Maybe George Steinbrenner should ask ESPN president George Bodenheimer how the network does it. The Yankees could use the help.

Where Do We Go From Here?

I let the dust settle first before I went off about what USC's loss to Oregon State.

I decided to give it a day, because, well, I wanted to gather my thoughts.

There's something that my favorite blogger Dan Shanoff pointed out yesterday; nationally, Southern California is seen not as a choker, like our good friends at THE Ohio State University, but are seen as a team as so cocky and arrogant, that it can't take care of the games that it needs to get to the top of the mountain.

The Buckeyes might get their asses kicked in the big games, but at least they get to the big games.

The Trojans, they haven't had a chance at the BCS title since losing to Texas because USC has lost to Oregon State, UCLA, Stanford and now, Oregon State again, teams seen as inferior in-conference opponents.

Because of this letdown the last couple of years, I don't expect the pollsters to be very kind to USC. If I were voting in any of the polls coming out tomorrow, there is no way I rank the Trojans in the top 25. In effect, USC's BCS hopes are done.

But what does that mean for the rest of the Pac-10?

There are two different strains of thought within the conference itself.

The first and most prevalent, is that any other potential Pac-10 contender is screwed. Here are a few text messages I got from friends Thursday night: "Wtf? I have no idea," "Looks like (Mike) Riley owns the Pac-10," "Jesus Christ," "Is this really happening?" "Shit," "There goes the Pac-10's credibility."

The thought for a long time for teams like California, Oregon, Arizona State and any other contender in one single season has been that USC was going to beat them, USC was going to run the table, get into the BCS and the runner-up in the Pac-10 would go to that promise land known as The Rose Bowl.

That seriously was the case when the No. 4 Bears finished second to No. 1 USC in 2004, but got screwed by the the BCS system.

Now, with the Trojans' BCS title game hopes all but dashed, so is the rest of the teams' hopes of getting to the Rose Bowl. Why? Because we still all know that SC has all the talent in the world. A loss like this should refocus the Trojans and they should take out their anger on the rest of the Pac-10.

Another Rose Bowl appearance for USC seems all but inevitable.

But, to steal a phrase from Lee Corso, not so fast, my friends.

The second strain of thought and the one that is less prevalent is, well, if Oregon State can knock off the Trojans, then shouldn't anyone be able to knock off the Trojans?

We all are not sure that USC can run the table the rest of the season. Sure, all of its (what-should-have-been) toughest opponents play at the Coliseum: Cal, Oregon, Arizona State and yeah, even Ohio State payed them a visit earlier this year.

But if lowly Stanford can cut through the mystique of the Coliseum, then, should the likes of the Bears, Ducks, and Devils be able to too?

And for teams like Cal, Oregon and ASU, which don't have a loss in-conference yet, the goal is simple: they have to run the table, which includes beating the Trojans, and if they do, well, then the Football Monopoly in The Rose Bowl Game (to borrow a phrase from our friends in Westwood) is Over.

It's easier to type this out than to do it. But really, it's sport. Anything can happen.

And at this point, wouldn't it be refreshing to not see USC in the BCS, kind of like not seeing the Yankees in the playoffs or not seeing Brett Favre be a douche in Green Bay.

We can only dream.