Winner: The Rose Bowl

It's nice to welcome old friends. Pac-10 Champion and Big Ten Champion meet on New Year's Day for first time in the Millenium. That's sugar-sweet. #1 USC and #4 Michigan will play a rematch of the 1948, 1970, 1977, 1979, 1989 and 1990 Granddaddies-of-them-All (USC victories in bold). Note to sportswriters: that is a 4-2 record; USC is 20-8 in the Rose Bowl, with its last victory coming in 1996 against Northwestern.

Losers: Oklahoma and LSU

One of these teams should have a shot at a national title. Instead, their hopes will be hanging on the fate of the Michigan Wolverines. If Big Blue is singing the blues, then the big game in the big easy will only be for the so-called BCS Championship--not the National Championship, as determined by the Associated Press

Winner: The Holiday Bowl

Rather than a blowout Wazz-Nebraska game, the San Diego game will get #5 Texas against #15 Washington State, and what should be an interesting matchup. BoiFromTroy is using his connections with The University at Austin to guarantee at least one bowl appearance, while waiting on the lottery to find our if he will be among the lucky 32,000 USC fans who get to withness the National Championship game in Pasadena.

Loser: The Fiesta Bowl

Once again, the Orange Bowl got greedy and booked two local teams in an effort to boost ticket sales. The Fiesta Bowl ends up with a wholly uninteresting matchup between Kansas State and Ohio State. Frankly, I would have rather seen a Miami-OSU rematch and Kansas State play Florida State...Bowden versus Snyder.

Winner: GOP Delegates in 2004

USC has been looking to schedule a preseason 'classic' game at a neutral site the last weekend in August. Rumors had it that Virginia Tech or Virginia were favored candidates for a game to be played at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, NJ.

Now, USC Coach Pete Carroll has issued an invitation to the winner of the so-called 'BCS Championship' to play USC in that game. I urge LSU and Oklahoma to provisionally sign onto the idea now. Why, then, this choice of winners? The game will be played the weekend before the Republican National Convention begins in New York City--GOP delegates can witness the National Title Game that should have been.

Loser: The System

Duh. The B.C.S. is hokey. You knew that, I knew that, the American people knew that. Antitrust investigations are already ongoing, but the latest controversey exposes what is perhaps the greatest injustice: the 'Coaches' Poll' is contractually obligated to select the winner of the so-called 'BCS title game' as its 'national champion'. The problem is, that Disney-owned ABC created the BCS for ratings, which signed a deal with the 'coaches' poll' which is run by ESPN, which is owned by Disney. If that passes the smell test, I don't know what wouldn't.

Cross-posted at BoiFromTroy