UCLA beats the Trojans

After all of the crap Notre Dame got for being taken to the wire by UCLA earlier this season, those mighty Bruins with their stellar defense whooped Peetey and his Condoms, holding them to a mere 9 points.

USC suffered the same letdown against UCLA that we suffered against Michigan - coming off a big win against a bigtime program and traditional rival.

I also love the symmetry of this season, as UCLA learned how to handle the end of game situation after they lost to us in the waning seconds. And that experience game them the poise they needed to close out the game against USC.

There was no way USC deserved a shot at the title this year after losing to unranked Oregon State.

Now, the BCS gets interesting.

If I was in charge, I'd give the title shot to Florida. (I just threw up a little bit in my mouth)

As I said before, I am not a fan of rematches, and Michigan already had their shot.

That said, it looks like Michigan will get their wish and Michigan-OSU Part Deux will decide the title. (I just threw up a little bit more in my mouth)

Which means that USC will get exposed by LSU in the Rose Bowl, and we will get our Sugar Bowl shot at Meyer and the paper tigers of Florida.

I hate the BCS as much as anyone (probably more), but I gotta say that it does create some exciting late season games.

BCS Selection Time

I'm not going to rehash the game, and I'm not going to go into detail about why we lost a game we should have won. I'll have plenty of time to do that during Christmas break (and I will...).

For now, I have more immediate concerns - predicting the BCS selections. There are still some Conference championship games to be played, but here are my predictions coming out of the weekend.

National Championship game	Ohio State Buckeyes	v.	Southern Cal Trojans
Glendale, AZ	BCS #1		BCS #2
Rose Bowl	Michigan Wolverines	v.	Louisiana State Tigers
Pasadena, CA	Big-Ten Replacement (automatic #3 BCS selection)		Pac-10 Replacement (at-large, no automatic berth)
Sugar Bowl	Florida Gators	v.	Notre Dame Fightin' Irish
New Orleans, LA	SEC Champ		At-large #1 (at-large, no automatic berth unless ranked #8 or higher)
Orange Bowl	Georgia Tech Yellowjackets	v.	Louisville Cardinals
Miami, FL	ACC Champ		At-large #2 (Big East champ)
Fiesta Bowl	Oklahoma Sooners	v.	Boise State Broncos
Glendale, AZ	Big 12 Champ		At-large #3 (automatic non-BCS conference champ)

There is a possibility that the Rose Bowl, disgusted with the matchups they've gotten since joining the BCS, chooses Notre Dame to get in a rematch with Michigan rather than a less traditional matchup. Notre Dame has played in the Rose Bowl before, in 1925.

There is an extremely remote possibility that Notre Dame falls out of the BCS entirely (although the Sugar Bowl has all but stated that they will pick Notre Dame if they are available and qualified). In that unlikely event, the Irish would fall o the Cotton Bowl, probably to face Texas.

A Florida-Notre Dame matchup in the Sugar Bowl is very attractive to the selection committee for two reasons. First, it pits Urban Meyer, who spurned advances from Notre Dame in the wake of the Willingham firing to take the job at Florida, against Weis, who eventually accepted the Notre Dame job. It will give the two coaches a chance to prove who has taken their team further in their first two years at the helm.

Also, a Notre Dame Florida matchup will be on the 15th anniversary of the famous "Cheerios" bowl, when the 18th ranked Irish beat the 3rd ranked Gators after several weeks of hearing that Notre Dame didn't belong in a bowl game of that stature.