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1. The USC Trojans clobbered Oklahoma 55-19 in Tuesday's Orange Bowl to win the BCS national championship game, blowing it open with 24 second-quarter points. It got so bad by the fourth quarter that USC installed Snoop Dogg and Will Ferrell as wide receivers.

2. USC's victory automatically made it the No. 1 choice in the coaches' poll, which has agreed to give its top spot to the winner of the BCS title game. The writers in the AP poll, meanwhile, declined comment.

3. The game was essentially over by halftime, when USC held a 38-10 lead. It was such a runaway that O.J. Simpson was able to sneak out for a round of miniature golf.

4. The Orange Bowl was the last game of the six-year career of Oklahoma quarterback Jason White, who won last year's Heisman Trophy during his first senior year. White will now try to catch on with an NFL team. Fortunately, if he doesn't make it he can still fall back on his university pension.

5. The Trojans ran for 193 yards in the game on 28 attempts, an impressive 6.9 yards per carry. Reggie Bush had a 45-yard run and LenDale White added a 39-yarder. Oklahoma's longest run came from defensive end Larry Birdine, who ran his mouth for three weeks before the game.

6. Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops didn't exactly rush to the aid of Mark Bradley, the Sooner senior who inexplicably tried to pick up a bouncing punt at the OU 3-yard line and promptly fumbled when it was still a 7-7 game in the first quarter. "I have no idea why Mark would have done that," Stoops said. "I was as shocked as anybody in the stadium. How do you explain that? I don't know. That goes back to Pop Warner football. Mark should have made a better decision. I'm not going to sit here and go any further in front of the whole media, but it's as bad a play as there is." Uh, thanks Bob, you probably went far enough. Now if somebody could kindly remove Mr. Bradley from the undercarriage of the OU bus.

7. It was interesting to hear ABC's announcers talking about USC's back-to-back championships while awarding the Trojans the crystal football that goes to the BCS champ. Does anyone else remember that last year at this time, that very same trophy was awarded to a different team (LSU) on the identical network? Are we now supposed to pretend that never happened?

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8. A blowout game such as this brings out the gallows humor in the press box. The 10 Spot's personal favorite was when one wag quipped that Jason White now intended to return for a seventh season to complete unfinished business. "This time," he intoned, "it's personal." In second place is this barb from SI.com's Stewart Mandel: "Even Ashlee Simpson performed better live than Oklahoma."

9. One alternative to the BCS system short of a playoff that has been proposed by the likes of Nick Saban and Tommy Tuberville is the plus-one format, in which one more game would be played after the bowls to decide the "real" champ. That format, though, wouldn't do much to help things this year. Presumably, such a game this season would match USC and Auburn. But that would still leave undefeated Utah out in the cold, and the Utes made the best case they could by dismantling a relatively weak Big East champ (Pitt) in the Fiesta. Unfortunately, when college football poobahs hear the word "playoff," they react much like Jim Mora.

10. On the bus back from the stadium to the hotel at about 2 a.m. Wednesday morning, I sat next to a gentlemen from The Oklahoman paper in Oklahoma City. Trying to establish my connection to his state, I mentioned that I have covered the College World Series several times. Unfortunately, that event is held in Omaha, Neb., which as it turns out is an entirely separate state. That's what you get when you learn your geography from the Counting Crows, who teach us only that Omaha is "somewhere in Middle America."