USC’s 36-point victory over Oklahoma Tuesday night in the Orange Bowl, this year’s designee by the Bowl Championship Series folks as the–ahem– undisputed national championship game, offers incontrovertible proof, many say, that the Trojans are the best team in the land.
The way the Trojans demolished the Sooners, these people claim, proved that no one, not even Auburn, could have beaten the Trojans. Maybe. Maybe not. But in the absence of a true national championship in college football, one decided on the field, all that is just conjecture.
So I would like to offer a modest proposal. Tigers coach Tommy Tuberville should march his players to a jewelry store and help them pick out and design rings. National championship rings.
The university should create all the flotsam and jetsam that customarily is attached to such achievement–national championship mugs and banners and T-shirts and videos–and sell it in the university bookstore.
That Auburn fans proudly declare “We’re No. 1” without reservation or reprimand.
All this is not meant to disregard the achievement of the Trojans. They, too, deserve the national championship. But to say that the Trojans’ flattening of Oklahoma proves that Auburn would have been similarly steamrolled is specious logic.
Oklahoma beat only three ranked teams this season–one of which, Texas, seems constitutionally incapable of standing up to the Sooners. Auburn beat four top-10 teams.
And even the mighty Trojans struggled at times this season. USC beat crosstown rival UCLA, which finished the regular season 6-5, by only five. It barely squeaked by Stanford, a team that finished 4-7 and handed its coach a pink slip at the end of the season, by three points. And Oregon State left the Trojans hot under the collar before finally falling 28-20. Close games, though, didn’t disqualify USC from claiming a national championship. A close victory over Virginia Tech Monday night in the Sugar Bowl should not disqualify the Tigers from one either.