The Regularly Scheduled Programs Rate Over Tide

Looking back now, because this regular season is almost history, Miami could have made the national-title race interesting had the Hurricanes not botched a late field-goal try in a season-opening loss to Florida State.

Miami has won seven straight since, boasts the nation’s top-ranked defense and might be the best team outside of Los Angeles or Austin.

Too bad, though, because this was the wrong year to get stuck in the starting gate.

The political wrangling for the Rose Bowl effectively is over, assuming USC and Texas remain as good as they’ve looked just about every week since training camp.

Is there any doubt about this?

UCLA was fun for a while, but even Karl Dorrell had to know there was a trip to Tombstone somewhere down the road.

Virginia Tech thought it was high tech until Miami short-circuited that wire in Blacksburg on Saturday.

So now there are only 2 1/2 undefeated teams left: USC, Texas and Alabama’s defense.

When the Alabama quarterback, after a 17-0 win over Mississippi State to get to 9-0, says “it’s all on my shoulders, we did not play good at all,” you know it’s not a good sign.

Since losing star receiver Tyrone Prothro to a gruesome leg fracture Oct. 1 against Florida, the Crimson Tide offense has slowed to a glacial slide, averaging 12 points in its last three Southeastern Conference games. Alabama has scored only one offensive touchdown in its last 13 SEC quarters.

Alabama is at a tipping point, and most figure the Tide will keel over either next week against Louisiana State, two weeks from now at Auburn or, eventually, in the SEC title game.

And, guess what, it doesn’t matter anyway. If USC, Texas and Alabama win out, sure, there will be pitchfork cries in the South exhorting that, a year after Auburn, the SEC got jobbed again by the bowl championship series standings.

It’s not even close.

Auburn was a legitimate title contender last year, with two top NFL picks in the backfield. You could reasonably argue that Auburn, not Oklahoma, should have played USC for the national title in the Orange Bowl and, from an entertainment standpoint, don’t we all wish.

Alabama is as far removed from USC and Texas this year as Dennis Franchione is from being elected mayor of Tuscaloosa.

In some ways, though, it is the same old yarn.

Auburn finished third in the BCS last year because the SEC thought it was so strong it didn’t have to play a nonconference schedule, so the Tigers lined up the likes of the Citadel.

This year, Alabama has played Utah State, Middle Tennessee and Southern Mississippi out of league while Texas beat Ohio State in Columbus and USC will have taken on Hawaii, Arkansas, Fresno State and Notre Dame.

Even if Alabama’s rugged defense can force enough safeties to get the team to 12-0, the national-title case gets tossed out before depositions are taken.

Memo to SEC schools tired of getting decimal-pointed out of the BCS:

Play somebody.

Believe it or not, Rose Bowl officials flew all the way to Blacksburg on Saturday to take credential photos for national writers planning on attending the Jan. 4 national-title game.

The way it looks now, in terms of field-access passes, the Rose Bowl has two pictures left to snap:

Bevo’s and Traveler’s.

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Weekend Wrap

Notre Dame is three wins -- Navy, Syracuse and Stanford -- from finishing 9-2 and earning a major bowl bid. If you do not believe this, well, get a grip.

If it’s USC and Texas in the Rose Bowl, the Fiesta gets first pick for losing anchor-team Texas and will take Notre Dame and then start painting Tempe green.

The way we assume it, the Orange Bowl will then take the Big Ten champion, especially if it’s 10-1 Penn State, and then the fight for the other at-large bid is up for grabs.

If Oregon finishes 10-1, even with a Leaf at quarterback, there will be heavy lobbying from the Pacific 10 Conference to get the Ducks to the Fiesta Bowl. The other at-large possibilities are one-loss schools that cannot win their conferences -- Texas Tech in the Big 12 and Virginia Tech in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Alabama, if it loses the SEC title game to finish 11-1, also becomes an attractive Fiesta Bowl partner for Notre Dame.

UCLA 14, Arizona 52, the aftermath: Some at the Lane Stadium press box in Blacksburg were wondering when was the last time an undefeated team was so thoroughly pummeled this late in the season. Well, USC thumped Oklahoma, 55-19, last year, and in the 1995 season finale, Nebraska defeated 12-0 Florida, 62-24.

The winners of those games, though, were world-class powers; Arizona is not.

Best guess at the words that opened the inevitable phone call placed Sunday by Oklahoma Coach Bob Stoops, whose team lost to UCLA this year, to Arizona Coach Mike Stoops: “Thanks, bro.”

Never in a million years (or the length of Charlie Weis’ next contract extension) could we have imagined after attending South Carolina versus Central Florida on Sept. 1 that both schools would be bowl eligible before Tennessee.

Guess what. Steve Spurrier’s Gamecocks are 6-3 after Saturday’s win over Arkansas and welcomes Florida to town next week, and George O’Leary’s Golden Knights are 6-3 and leading Conference USA’s East Division. The bottom line is both those codgers can coach.

Drought alert: The two Pac-10 teams based in Washington have not won since Sept. 17, when Washington State defeated Grambling and Washington downed Idaho.