Plugging the Credibility Gap

NEW ORLEANS — The college football season is over, but not the hangover, which pulsates in the heads of joyous Louisiana State fans and in the halls of bowl championship series headquarters.

It will be recorded that USC and LSU shared a national crown after an exasperating journey that might best be described in a headline: “Split to Be Tied.”

The year had a little bit of everything, featuring a closing magic act that included disappearing doves.

In the final USA Today/ESPN coaches’ poll, USC lost 34 of its 37 first-place votes after beating Michigan by two touchdowns in the Rose Bowl.

“I won’t even try to explain it,” outgoing BCS coordinator Michael Tranghese said of the coaches’ dropping their No. 1 team after a convincing win. “There’s no rational explanation.”

Since the BCS was formed in 1998, it has survived scorn, ridicule and giggles, yet this was the first year the BCS had been accused of fraud.

By rights, USC should have won the Associated Press and the coaches’ national championship.

The Trojans were No. 1 in both polls going into their bowl game, right? And they won handily.

The voting coaches and their governing body, however, made the dubious decision in 1998 to award their share of the trophy to the BCS title-game winner, never fathoming that the No. 1 team in their own poll might not be in the game.

Grant Teaff, executive director of the American Football Coaches Assn., could not be reached for comment Monday.

He had said in a previous statement that the coaches agreed to this deal by “an overwhelming majority.”

Why did the coaches put themselves in this spot?

Those familiar with the decision say that ABC, which holds the broadcast rights to the BCS games, did not want to wait for a tabulation of votes before crowning a champion.

ABC wanted a trophy presented on the field, immediately after the game.

Associated Press was never going to agree to such a deal, but Teaff and the AFCA went along.

“I don’t think anybody sat there and thought we could have this game not involve the team that was No. 1 in both human polls,” Tranghese said. “It was no conspiracy, and we [the BCS conferences] weren’t a party to it, but I understand the problem.”

The decision has come back to haunt the AFCA and has left voting coaches defending their credibility.

Many coaches struggled with the decision.

Even after USC had beaten Michigan in the Rose Bowl, Oregon Coach Mike Bellotti said he would reluctantly hand over his No. 1 vote for USC to the Sugar Bowl winner.

Unlike AP voters, coaches are not required to reveal how they voted and many of them, no doubt, will keep their final votes private.

To many, this only raises concerns about credibility and accountability.

The arrangement has also put a newspaper, USA Today, in an awkward position, journalistically. The paper is a co-sponsor of the coaches’ poll, along with ESPN, and is in charge of tabulating and publishing poll results.

Jim Welch, deputy managing editor/sports, had said before the Sugar Bowl that his paper might not publish a final ranking if he did not deem it credible.

USA Today did publish a final poll, however, that many would describe as incredible.

“In the end, as you could see, we decided to let people know what went on,” Welch said Monday.

Welch said the newspaper was uncomfortable with its part in this poll controversy.

“We’ve worked hard over the last 13 years to build credibility into this thing,” he said of the coaches’ poll. “It’s disturbing to us to have its standing come into question because of this, and understandably so.”

Welch said USA Today would insist on changes in the format.

“We definitely need to come up with a different arrangement,” he said. “We’re in the news because the situation as it stands right now is questionable. We need to address it. We talked about it already. We expect to meet [with the AFCA] sometime this month.”

By agreement, the 63 voting coaches were supposed to phone in their final ballots to the newspaper, leaving the No. 1 team blank.

One coach said Monday that Teaff had issued an e-mail to voting coaches, stating he wanted to speak with any coach who was thinking of keeping USC at No. 1.

In the end, 34 of the 37 coaches marched, lock step, to AFCA orders.

Some coaches said they didn’t understand the ramifications of their AFCA contract, a claim Tranghese disputes.

“Coaches knew what they signed on for,” Tranghese said, “and I’ve seen some of them run for the hills.... They tell their kids to stand up in the face of adversity, and I’ve got coaches now that want to run for the hills.”

LSU Coach Nick Saban, whose Tigers earned a BCS share of the national title with Sunday’s Sugar Bowl victory over Oklahoma, said he did not think the voting coaches should have to reveal their votes.

“You think we should?” he asked a reporter at Monday’s post-Sugar Bowl news conference. “I am one of the coaches who vote. I know you would like it as a media person for you to know how I vote. But as a coach who votes, I wouldn’t like that you do.”

Until the coaches come clean, however, there are always going to be credibility issues.

Part of the AFCA’s code of ethics states, “The welfare of the game depends on how the coaches live up to the spirit and letter of ethical conduct and how coaches remain ever mindful of the high trust and confidence placed in them by their players and the public.”

That prompts the question: Are the coaches who stripped their No. 1 team of its ranking after a victory living up to that tenet?

Saban made no apologies for how things worked out.

He said LSU won its share of the title, fair and square.

The BCS national-title game, by rule, matched the top two teams in the BCS standings, excluding the top team in the human polls.

The system broke down when the regular season ended with three teams of comparable merit.

“The system couldn’t handle three teams,” Saban said. “Unless the teams play each other, no one’s going to know who is the best team.”

Saban added, “Our team did what we could do, relative to the circumstance we were in.”

Asked to comment on the three coaches who’d kept USC at No. 1, Saban said, “No way do I have any disrespect for anyone who didn’t vote for us.”

And although LSU won the BCS trophy, sentiment continued to build for USC, which received its AP trophy in a campus ceremony Monday.

On the same day, the Sporting News crowned USC its national champion, with editorial director John Rawlings stating, “You look at the season on the whole and we say USC is the best team in the country.”

USC also won the Grantland Rice Trophy, the national-title award presented by the Football Writers’ Assn. of America.

As controversial as this season turned out, Tranghese said it could have been worse:

“I think the kids at USC and the kids at LSU and the kids at Oklahoma have handled a very difficult situation as well as could be expected.

“I don’t think they bellyached and complained. I think they accepted the fact there was going to be a split national championship, and I think they’ve said all the right things.”

Tranghese said USC Coach Pete Carroll, in particular, had “handled a very, very difficult situation in a way he should be commended for.”

Tranghese said he wrote Carroll a letter expressing those thoughts. “I thanked him,” Tranghese said, “because I know this is a very controversial time and he could have stirred the waters even more so.”

Given what has transpired in the last month, that is difficult to imagine.