Randall Moore
Sports Columnist

Even the BCS can't screw this one up

The Bowl Championship Series has to feel vindicated this year. Year after year of endless bickering and controversy has paved the way to the bowl games of 2005-2006. Luckily for the BCS even they couldn’t screw this year up. University of Southern California and Texas, ranked No. 1 and 4 in my preseason college football rankings are both undefeated and will play each other Jan. 4 for college football’s top prize. The other BCS bowl games are Big Ten Champion Penn State facing off against Atlantic Coast Conference Champion Florida State in the Fed-Ex Orange Bowl, Big East Champion West Virginia and Southeastern Conference Champion Georgia in the Nokia Sugar Bowl and Co-Big Ten Champion Ohio State against Notre Dame in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl.

You have three very compelling match-ups in this field. You have the two winningest coaches in the history of Division I-A football facing each other in the Orange Bowl. Joe Paterno and Florida State’s Bobby Bowden have a combined record of over 700 victories in their respective coaching careers.

 The Fiesta Bowl has two of the all-time powers as Charlie Weis’ Golden Domers take on the Buckeyes in a game that features two of the early favorites for the 2006 Heisman Trophy - Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn and Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith.

The national title game promises to be perhaps one of the greatest college football battles in the history of the sport. Both USC and Texas won their conference championships outright; USC thumped UCLA 66-19 while Texas reamed Colorado 70-3. These two teams match up well on paper as USC’s outstanding core offense of Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, LenDale White and Dwayne Jarrett face Texas’ own superman in quarterback Vince Young. The Longhorns have the advantage on defense this year over USC; however, many thought Oklahoma had the advantage last year against USC in the Orange Bowl and Oklahoma got blown out 55-19.

Two bowl games that look to be entertaining are the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl and the Toyota Gator Bowl. The Peach Bowl features two teams that were ranked in the Top 5 for most of the year: Louisiana State and Miami (Fla.). Behind the power-running game of Alley Broussard and Justin Vincent, LSU went 10-2 in coach Les Miles’ first season as the Tigers head coach. Miami finished the season 9-2 with a bad loss to Georgia Tech late in the year, which kept them from facing off against Florida State in the ACC Championship game.

The Gator Bowl matches up the high-scoring offense of Louisville vs. the no. 1 ranked defense in the nation, the Virginia Tech Hokies. If Louisville sophomore quarterback Brian Brohm is healthy then the Cardinals have a chance to win. However, the defense of Virginia Tech should be too much for Louisville to handle.