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Posted on 01/05/2005 8:38:56 AM PST by RedBloodedAmerican
USC No. 1 from start to finish in AP poll
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MIAMI (AP) -- Southern California joined some elite company with its latest AP national title. The Trojans became just the second team to go No. 1 wire-to-wire in The Associated Press Top 25, and the 10th team to repeat as national champs.
Following a resounding 55-19 victory over Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl, USC received all but three first-place votes early Wednesday to easily outdistance Auburn.
The Trojans (13-0) are the first back-to-back AP champs since Nebraska in 1994-95.
"I know right now I'm in the middle of something special," USC coach Pete Carroll said Wednesday morning after receiving both the AP and Bowl Championship series national title trophies.
"We are now unanimously No. 1," Orange Bowl MVP Matt Leinart said right after the game.
Not quite, but good enough.
USC received 62 first-place votes and 1,622 points. Auburn got the other first-place votes and 1,559 points.
The Sooners (12-1) finished third, ahead of unbeaten Utah (12-0) and Texas (11-1).
Auburn (13-0) finished its perfect season Monday night with a 16-13 victory over Virginia Tech in the Sugar Bowl.
Tigers coach Tommy Tuberville and his team practically pleaded with poll voters to give his team a championship, but to no avail.
"Anybody who thought that last night was a championship game, I beg to differ," Tuberville said Wednesday morning. "I'm disappointed that with the type of team we had, as balanced as we were, we did not get a chance to play in that game."
The Trojans' 36-point rout was the third-largest margin in a matchup between No. 1 and No. 2 teams.
USC joined Florida State in 1999 as the only teams to be No. 1 from start to finish since the AP started a preseason poll in 1950. The Trojans are also the 10th preseason No. 1 to win the national championship.
The Trojans' fifth AP title tied them with Miami for the fourth most.
Notre Dame leads with eight national titles, followed by Oklahoma with seven and Alabama with six.
And if the Trojans start next season No. 1 - a good possibility even if Leinart skips his senior season for the NFL draft - they will match Miami's record of 19 straight polls as No. 1.
No team has ever won three straight AP titles, but USC could enter next season as the favorite to do just that.
Louisville was No. 6, followed by Georgia, Iowa, California and Virginia Tech.
Miami was 11th, and for the first time since 1982, no team from Florida ended the season ranked among the nation's top five.
Florida State (9-3) finished ranked 15th and Florida (7-5) ended the season unranked.
Boise State's first loss of the season to Louisville in the Liberty Bowl dropped the Broncos two spots to No. 12.
Navy made it into the rankings for the first time since 1979 at No. 24. Fresno State also joined the poll at 22.
PUNT.............and run.......I don't think it is a major fault but it is none the less.......doesn't mean it is an epicenter point but still scarey.......very old stadium, don't know if they even knew it but now i'm guessing
We looked up future schedules, and Ohio State is either their second or third game next year.
For UT to truly get over the hump, they have to beat Oklahoma. Maybe they can do it next year. I'm not terribly confident because it seems to be such mental block. They automatically choke. It's one of the strangest things I've observed in college football.
It's the Hayward Fault, and it's nearly as major as they get. The fault runs end zone to endzone, so visiting teams expecting an earthquake should keep that in mind. Depending on which end of the field you're on, adjust your running plays accordingly. The west side of the field is going to get moved.
How so? We know what happened to OU last time they tangled with an SEC team (LSU). They were as overrated then as they were this year.
I waited and waited for the commentators on ABC to admit the obvious during the game, that Auburn would of been a better match-up for the Orange Bowl. But of course, all three commentator predicted OU to win, so they would not swallow their pride and admit how inflated their opinions were.
AU got the shaft, plain and simple.
I mean how they lost Mike Williams, or Winston Justice, losing your premier QB or RB IS a big hit, but Call didn't lose Aaron Rogers or J.J. Arrington, if Aaron Rogers is a top 10 pick, he should be able to make the players around him better. Who is Brandon Stokley or Reggie Wayne without Peyton Manning? Marvin Harrison never got more than 900 yards receiving until Peyton Manning's 2nd season. Marshall Faulk wasn't a superstar till Peyton's 1st season, until then, he was just a running back with great potential, and he was #1 overall in 1994, for 4 years he never played his potential. The Steelers were mature enough to lose Duce Staley and still win, everyone said Bettis didn't have anything left, and with Ben Roethlisberger as their QB? Thats saying something about their maturity, especially Big Ben's.
oh yeah....i stand corrected.....hayward is a major on for sure......i wonder since it slides off if and when it goes off it actually does much ......last time that went off to my knowledge was in the 80's cause I was going to Cal State Hayward at the time and we all ran down to the basement of science building to watch the seismagraph
Disingenious assumption, Auburn was suppost to play Stanford instead of The Citidal, but Bowling Green bought out their contract (for about $20,000, which is too low a price) to play OU. Auburn offered them the same amount to not drop them, but BG refused.
When you make the statement that Auburn didn't "Bother" to play better people, you completely ignore the facts that AU was left and the last second to find anybody they could to fill it's schedule and at the last second you don't exactly have the cream of the crop to pick from.
Admit it ! Auburn got the shaft and BG was in on it.
Mistake in my previous post.
well I'm trying to understand your logic....you keep saying maturity, but it is depth and yes, they lost Chase Lyman and Mckeenon and Macarthur was in and out all year....it doesn't matter that they were not a Willaims, they were as important to the Cal offense as Bush is to the USC offense...I"m really not making this up.......Lyman had most of the TD's and something like a 26 yards per catch average and fastest receiver we had.....so in that aspect he was as important to Rogers and Cal....hey, I never made excuses during the season......I told my friends, what you said...youpractive evey week, you have to perform. But receiving is alot more timing.......I mean Rogers numbers up to the USC game were better than Leinerts even and he has a stronger arm.....i'm not saying he is better but then all of a sudden he got lame or something......it was a big hit for us..........that is all i'm saying..we were almost 50%50 running passing and after that we had to become unbalanced which was not our strength.......what about that doyou disagree with...again, no excuses but those are factual and we didn't ahve the depth (not maturity) to overcome that
I agree. USC dominated the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. (Their receivers and QB also dominated OU's secondary.) The OU coach, who blamed it all on his team's "mistakes", didn't have the grace to admit the obvious.
I agree that the before-injuries Cal was every bit deserving of its ranking. It is just too bad that the country didn't get to see that team.
Why?
agreed but who watches the west coast in sports and that goes for the pro's as well.......East coast always gets the print unless you are so outstanding they have to watch..look at JJ Arington.....you can make a case for all three but he had more yards, more yards per carry and less carries and had over 100 yards in every game....not peterson or Benson did that but all you heard was about them......Benson may have been the best but hell, Arrington was heads above Peterson but you would never hear it
Wide Reciever is the easiest position to dominate in football. If Aaron Rogers's were good "up to the USC game"? What does that mean? That isn't saying much. Your making him sound more and more overrated, and if thats the case then he has no business going into the NFL Draft this year, MAYBE even next year, even if his arm IS stronger than Leinhart's. And all of the sudden he got lame? Then maybe call DIDN'T deserve to be in a top bowl game. And in college, you ALWAYS have more depth than they do in the pros. Yeah, sure, you can only practice for 20 hours a week, but so can the other team. Besides, Aaron Rogers is a Goth to a Trojan. He is a Trojan killer. If ANYONE coudl've beat USC it would be Cal and he would've have led the game and elevated his game to a level that would've won him the Heisman, NOT Leinhart. But, I guess he is overrated.
Central Florida 2004 Schedule/Results
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Boo hoo...not a good Sooner day :-(
The problem is that those of us who live east of the Rockies can't, unless we get DirectTV. I live in PA, in the midst of some tall trees, and don't have a clear line of sight to the satellite over Texas. On Comcast, I can see Notre Dame play any week, but unless USC plays them, I can't see the Trojans during the regular season, unless I fly to one of their games.
Try another guess.
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