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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.
The AP poll of sports writers has been going since 1935. UPI used to have the Coaches' poll before it was taken over by CNN/USA Today. Many sports almanacs list the "National Championship" based on those two traditional polls.
Of course you can add the polls by various sports magazines, or as I mentioned, some of the "look-back" studies by people such as Jeff Sagarin.
Notice too, that I use "national championship" in quotations, because it is mythical.
And I think that's fine. I have no problem with more than one team being recognized as the "strongest" team in college football. This is especially true when you have so many teams and relatively" so few games.
Even if you ran the whole of Div I-A as a knockout tournament, like the NCAA basketball tournament, it would take 7 weeks to obtain a champion. That would cut the season in half (or more) for most teams and cause their college sports programs financial ruin.
The SEC is a traditionally strong conference, that was off its peak this year. Next year might be different.
They could run a playoffs with the top 12 teams in mid December and January. Then have a National Championship game.
The "computer numbers" are a model that makes comparisons by reiterative analyses. It is a statistically valid method for assigning "strength" values to the teams, based on perfromance. However, with any statistical system, it is neither foolproof nor clairvoyant. Such as system deals with probablities.
"That is why guys like Ryan Leaf could never make it in the NFL. Over hyped PAC 10 joke."
For every Ryan Leaf from the Pac-10 I can name a Gino Torretta or a Charlie Ward from other conferences. I can also tell you some of the best quarterbacks ever to play the game came out of western schools.
The PAC-10 and its forerunners (PAC-8, etc) have always been under-appreciated by the eastern and southern writers. I can remember one year in the 1970's, in which USC beat Alabama during the season, ended up with a better record, and still only split the "national title" with them. Such is the south-east bias.
I read that same blurb on the Alabama link you provided.
You do realize that some of the titles were based on rankings provided by Dunkle, Litkenhous, and Sagarin - all of which use statistical methods. In other words, they are the computer rankings you think area joke!
Do you still stand by your boast that Alabama has won more "national titles" than all of the PAC-10 combined?
How do you decide the top 12 teams?
Well the NCAA can do it in Division I just like they do it in Division IAA, II, or III. Or they could make it something like the NFL when it comes to the playoffs.
I'd like to see the betting line on that game. Can you name a recognized poll that places Auburn over USC?
I don't think any serious person believes that USC is NOT the best college football team in the nation this week. Of course, there are always a few nutcases who live in some sort of an alternate reality while occupying the same planet we do, but there's not much point in debating them anyway.
A playoff system would likely create a permanent elite group of about two dozen teams. If this were international soccer, that might be a good thing. But it is college football.
Zogby?
He got just about everything else wrong! Why not this one too?!
"Zogby?" ROFLOL!!!!!
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