A Little Love from North Central Florida

[JoeB]

From the Ocala Star Banner........

BCS puts bull's eye on the Bulls

BY DAVE GEORGE

Cox News Service

WEST PALM BEACH - Stately BCS china shop, meet the Bulls of South Florida.

In business as a college football program since 1997, they are as close to a national championship as any team can be in this third week of October. Think about that for a minute, but no longer.

This freight train of a fantasy is moving too fast for anyone to truly contemplate or comprehend.

Five weeks ago, the Bulls had never been ranked at all. Today they are No. 2 in the BCS standings, which are the only ones that count toward setting up the national title game in New Orleans Jan. 7.

Ohio State is No. 1, but that's a tribute to tradition alone.

South Florida gobbles up tradition for breakfast and belches fire for fun. The Bulls bounced Auburn. They chewed up West Virginia. Now it's down to crunching tasty numbers in the weekly BCS polls, where the computers already are on the bandwagon.

How do I feel about all of this? Well, genuinely shocked, for openers. More than a little amused, too. There is a serious strain of resistance in my DNA, though, and it exists on the same chromosome that marks a preference for quiet movie theaters over those peopled with chatty teens.

The BCS, after all, was invented to create order in the selection of legitimate national title contenders. This season's unending string of upset losses by the NCAA's prime-time programs has altered the formula so drastically that Rome truly can be built in a day, and with kindergarteners for carpenters.

So why hasn't it happened before? For one thing, the BCS wasn't born until 1998 and no season since then has been so slippery for the pre-season powers. For another, upstart teams like Boise State and Hawaii, they've been safely parked in the BCS waiting room because their conferences aren't guaranteed a spot in the major bowls under most circumstances.

The turning point for South Florida came when Miami and Virginia Tech jumped to the ACC in 2003 and the Big East went scrambling for replacements.

The Bulls made the jump from Conference USA to the Big East in 2005 as a result and, just as important, the weakened Big East didn't get bumped out of the BCS inner circle as originally feared. Turns out, the Big East is a better football league than the ACC these days. As for Bulls coach Jim Leavitt, his decision to turn down a coaching offer from Alabama five years ago wasn't so dizzy after all.

If Nick Saban ever gets to a national championship game at Alabama, it will be at the end of an SEC death march. Leavitt is only a hop, skip and a jump away, and he is there playing by the BCS rules.

The irony here is that South Florida is in real danger of losing its regal standing because of the low-watt league opponents being coughed up on the schedule in the coming weeks.

Rutgers, the flavor of the month in college football a year ago, gets the Bulls on national television Thursday night. After that comes Connecticut, a 5-1 team that's only been playing in the NCAA's largest division since 2000. Later it's Cincinnati, on an all-time high with four straight weeks near the bottom of the AP poll, and Louisville, unranked at 4-3 but capable of outscoring anybody.

South Florida used to be in the position of these rivals, looking for a big-name opponent to knock off. Put the bull's eye on the Bulls this time around, however, and know that the difference is as monumental as South Florida's rise.

My view is that the Bulls will get kicked to the curb at some point, but in fairness I felt the same way about Miami a quarter century ago.

The Hurricanes were nobody's prom date back then. No conference affiliation. One bowl appearance during a span of 16 years, and that was the Peach. One finish in the final AP rankings during that same period, and that was 18th.

All it took was a single season (1983) and one unconventional coach (Howard Schnellenberger) to push the Hurricanes into position for a national title, and one amazing victory (31-30 over No. 1 Nebraska in the Orange Bowl) to close the deal. Far too soon to see South Florida in that light, but Miami's ability to keep it going should be the real motivation for Leavitt.

The Hurricanes have five national championships, more than Florida and FSU combined. From a palace coup to a dynasty, Miami prevailed through every adaptation in the championship selection system.

If South Florida somehow makes it all the way to the BCS title game, Schnellenberger's vision will sparkle anew. Are you going to tell him that Florida Atlantic can't become a major player with some future promotion to a stouter conference?

Are you going to look at the BCS standings today and tell anybody anything?