BCS Gets Icy Reviews From These South Polls

AUBURN, Ala. —  This is the South, so you must realize things happen a little more slowly down here.

After all, the Southeastern Conference finally got around to hiring a black head football coach in 2004, only 41 years after Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

So you’ll have to excuse the locals if they’re a little late in arriving to the bowl championship series protest. But they’re here now, joining the rest of us in recognizing the flaws in the BCS system.

Because now the victim could be one of their own, the Auburn Tigers of the SEC.

Auburn is 10-0 entering today’s game against hated rival Alabama. But the Tigers are on the outside, peering in the window of the BCS party. The Tigers are third in the BCS rankings, trailing No. 1 USC and No. 2 Oklahoma in the race in which the top two teams get to compete for the BCS version of college football’s mythical championship in the Orange Bowl.

It’s possible that the Tigers could beat the Crimson Tide, win the SEC championship game next week and still not get an invitation to the Orange Bowl.

“I’m a little bit worried about it,” Auburn student Steve Daughty said. “It’s not going to be a good feeling if it happens.”

He was smoking cigarettes with Auburn graduates Lane and Tami Blackwell in the Bodega bar, located in the historic Bank of Auburn building on Toomer’s Corner. Down Magnolia Avenue, past the Auburn Hardware store advertising “Big Sale -- Confederate T-shirts” in the window (uh, the Civil War ended 139 years ago, fellas; the Confederacy lost) is the All American Embroidery store, filled with orange-and-blue Auburn attire.

Joe Piazza’s brother owns the store. Piazza predates the Auburn name. When he enrolled in the 1950s, the school was still known as the Alabama Polytechnic Institute.

He’s ready for another change: a new method for determining the Division I-A college champion.

“I don’t think, whatever system you’ve got, that everybody’s going to be pleased with it,” Piazza said.

“I don’t think the computers can do the job that we think they should do. And I don’t think people are going to vote the way we think they should vote. So I’ve got problems both ways. And that’s the Auburn bias coming out.”

He has heard the arguments against a playoff, that someone would always feel left out no matter how many teams were included, that the presidents don’t want to add extra games to the season.

“I know it could drag the season out,” Piazza said. “But I also know other divisions do it. This year, I think maybe four teams could decide it.”

In SEC country, this constitutes a minor revolution. Former SEC commissioner Roy Kramer was one of the instrumental developers of the BCS and its staunchest defender. Now, even the conference coaches are breaking ranks.

Take Louisiana State’s Nick Saban, who was crowned BCS champion last year after his Tigers beat Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl. The Sooners were present courtesy of a No. 2 ranking handed to them by the BCS computers despite a thrashing in the Big 12 championship game, while third-ranked USC -- the No. 1 team in the Associated Press poll -- competed for the AP championship against Michigan in the Rose Bowl.

That led to a BCS overhaul that placed two-thirds of the ranking components in the hands of the media and coaches polls, leaving the final third to the computers.

“The problem last year was the system did not handle three teams,” Saban said earlier this week. “The problem this year may be the system will not handle three teams. So they can change it however they want, but until we create a system that includes more than two teams, we won’t be able to handle three teams at the top whoever they are, whoever’s deserving, by whatever system. And there’ll always be speculation that that system is flawed.”

To Auburn Coach Tommy Tuberville, the flaw is that so much of the human polls are predetermined before the season even begins. The Tigers began the season No. 18 in the coaches’ poll, while Oklahoma held the second spot.

“If you’re going to have this system, then [rankings] should start around the first of October,” Tuberville told USA Today. “People will have a little bit of an idea on how [teams] are doing rather than guessing.”

But as long as there are human polls, the system will be open to accusations of different agendas.

“When you get coaches voting, I mean, come on,” Lane Blackwell said. “It’s human bias.”

Will the coaches, whose ballots are not made public, vote for their own conferences and against their enemies? Can media members accurately assess teams they haven’t watched? Are they prone to reflecting their regions?

At least the Auburn backers admit their agenda.

“We’re as biased in this part of the country as anybody can be,” Piazza said.

In some cases, the bias sounds almost like paranoia.

“It seems like everyone really doesn’t like the SEC,” Daughty said. “We’re always the underdogs. They’re always going to go with the teams from out West and things like that.”

“I think last year, USC” was cheated, Tami Blackwell said. “And if they played LSU, who knows what would happen?”

The answer is simple:

“I would love to see a playoff system,” Daughty said. “And that would settle it.”

If they can reach that conclusion in the heart of SEC country, why can’t the truth climb its way up the Ivory Tower?

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J.A Adande can be reached at [email protected]. To read more columns by Adande, go to latimes.com/Adande.