USC Three-Pete? The University of Southern California did not win a national championship in the 2003 season as is being implied by the sports media. The BCS system was the agreed upon method for assigning a sole national champion in 2003, so Louisiana State University is the sole national champion. When the sportswriters with interest in Southern California did not get their way, they changed the rules. If the same purported snubbing had happened to a team like Nebraska or Tennessee, a separate fake AP national championship would not have been awarded, but since the alleged snubbing happened to a team from Southern California, the West Coast dominated press finagled history. The AP poll made up one-third of the BCS ranking that year, so the press had its say; to vote for their own separate national champion is wrong because they cannot vote twice just because they do not like the outcome. The BCS was designed to prevent dual national champions by getting the AP poll and the Coaches poll to combine with a tiebreaker under a unified system that would also result in a highly competitive championship game. Since the AP has withdrawn from the BCS, the AP can now have their own national champion again. The AP pull out of the BCS also proves their 2003 national championship was illegitimate because there would be no need to pull out of the BCS if voting for both national championships was a legitimate practice. The AP entered the BCS voluntarily, so it must live with the results. Writers and reporters seem to have no ethical dilemma in manufacturing a national championship for their home team and no moral quandary with taking away from the hard fought and legitimately earned national championship of the LSU Tigers. The AP’s eleventh hour creation of a separate national championship does take away from the accomplishments of LSU’s student athletes; those who believe otherwise are living in a communist fantasyland. We might as well give a championship to every team in the top ten just in case a polling error was made. Those who have a disagreement with the BCS system may have a point, but protest should be carried out between seasons to avoid impact on innocent players. The football community should not allow the 2003 national championship to be split just because the Southern California biased sports writers and reporters whined to get their way and circumvented the rules upon that they agreed. Without conceding that a mistake was made in the 2003 BCS poll, it is important to note that mistakes are made all the time in polls and officiating. Should Miami also share in the 2002 national championship because of a blown pass interference call? That would be ridiculous! However, according to the AP’s actions in 2003, the team that should have won should be awarded the victory regardless of who actually won. Perhaps if that incident would have happened to UCLA instead of Miami, two national champions would have been declared. The shady actions of the AP in 2003 force us to consider it as a frightening possibility. All references to USC as having a share of the 2003 national championship should no longer be made. The LSU Tigers are the sole 2003 national champions of Division I A college football; do let history reflect that; do not let unethical self seeking people detract from that.

Bryan Kaatz 109 South Sunshine Lane, Academy, Texas 76554(254) 982-4920