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The shaft No. 2 Miami gets squeezed out of a national title shot
You beat Florida State, the golden boys of college football and the defending national champions, and it comes off looking like a win over Rutgers or somebody. You travel 2,734 miles to Seattle, in the second game of the season -- those early season losses aren't supposed to count as much, you know? -- drop a five-pointer to a darn good Washington team and the loss is held against you like you just lost to Temple, for Pete's sake. Yeah, the people in Miami who love the Miami Hurricanes are pretty hacked off these days. And it's tough to blame them. The 'Canes may be the best team in college football. They have only that one loss. They are ranked No. 2 in both the major polls. And, let's not forget, they beat Florida State. Evidently, that doesn't mean squat when it comes to picking a national champion. The national championship game, where the two best teams are supposed to be playing, takes place this season in the Orange Bowl at Pro Player Stadium on Jan. 3. Miami, in all likelihood, won't be there. Instead, the team Miami beat 27-24 back on Oct. 7 and the team they are ranked ahead of in the two major polls -- those Teflon-coated Seminoles -- will be. There, Florida State will meet No. 1 Oklahoma, if the unbeaten Sooners can beat back Kansas State in the Big 12 Championship game this weekend. It is, in a word, unfortunate for the Hurricanes. But in Miami, it's way more than that. In Miami, it's darn near a crime. "I couldn't put into words," Miami quarterback Ken Dorsey said, "how disappointing it would be if we didn't make it to the Orange Bowl." Picking a national champion has never been a smooth process. The whole indecisiveness of it, the chance for a good college debate, is charming to some. It is a testament to the passion college football inspires. But to others, it's a reason to get all riled up and talk about some kind of national championship tournament to end all the uncertainty. All the hemming and hawing (or at least most of it -- this is college football) was supposed to be silenced with the Bowl Championship Series, now in its third season. The BCS was supposed to put the two best teams in one title game, based on polls and strength of schedules and a computerized formula that's as confusing as, say, finding your way through a courthouse in Tallahassee. Still, the BCS title game, hate it or not, worked the first two times it was run. Nobody could doubt Tennessee beating Florida State a couple of years back, or FSU knocking off Virginia Tech last season. Now, though, it's nearly bound to be a failure. Miami -- ranked No. 2, ahead of No. 3 Florida State in the two traditional polls but ranked No. 3 in the BCS rankings behind the Seminoles -- is about to get the shaft from a system that was supposed to eliminate the shafting. "Let them make their decision," Miami's spectacular Santana Moss said. "But remember this: The University of Miami deserves to be No. 2 in the BCS." Everything could still work out, of course. An Oklahoma loss to a lightly regarded Kansas State team in the Big 12 title game would put Miami in the Orange against Florida State. And wouldn't the BCS look pretty good then? But it's more likely that things won't work out and Miami won't make the title game. It's probably more likely the 'Canes will go play Florida or Auburn in the Sugar Bowl, or Notre Dame or some Pac-10 team in the Fiesta. That opens the debating door, of course, for the deliciously BCS-bashing possibility of a split vote for national champs. If the voters in the Associated Press poll give the 'Canes the nod after they win whatever bowl they're in, and if Florida State beats Oklahoma in the Orange, giving the Seminoles the No. 1 spot in the coaches' poll, there will be two No. 1s. And that would leave only one lingering question, the one that Hurricanes' fans have been scratching their heads over for weeks, the one that, if the BCS considered it, would have ironed out this whole mess in the first place. Didn't Miami beat Florida State? John Donovan is a senior writer for CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer. Comments? To e-mail Donovan, click here.
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