LSU earns spot opposite Buckeyes in title game
By ASSOCIATED PRESS

LSU has a ticket to the title game. Everyone else has a pretty good gripe.

The latest chapter in this crazy, unpredictable college football season was written Sunday when LSU won the sport's version of the lottery, being picked to play Ohio State for the championship and leaving about a halfdozen other candidates with plenty to complain about.

The Tigers (11-2), ranked second in the latest Associated Press poll, will be the first team to play in the BCS title game with two losses.

''It is something a lot of guys never thought we would have the opportunity to have after we lost to Arkansas, but the guys just kept on fighting and controlled the things they could control and now we are going on to play in the championship,'' LSU safety Craig Steltz said.

No. 1 Ohio State goes into the game, Jan. 7 at the Superdome in New Orleans, at 11-1.

''We always talk to our guys about the fact you better win all your games,'' Ohio State coach Jim Tressel said. ''We didn't do that but we still have an opportunity in a crazy football season.''

Missouri and West Virginia, which came into the weekend ranked 1 and 2, lost Saturday to blow their title chances. Missouri was left out of the BCS championship altogether.

Why did LSU, which was seventh in the BCS standings heading into the final weekend, make the jump to No. 2 and into the big game, while Oklahoma, Southern California, Georgia and a number of others were left behind?

The 174 poll voters and handful of computer nerds whose calculations make up the BCS rankings probably all have their own reasons. Among the best is LSU was rewarded for winning the Southeastern Conference, which is traditionally viewed as one of the toughest leagues in the nation.

There's also the argument coach Les Miles and athletic director Skip Bertman offered up Saturday night: The Tigers went undefeated in regulation - their two losses both coming in triple overtime.

Paper-thin as that line of reasoning may sound, it's as good as any in this topsyturvy season during which the top-ranked team lost four times, the second-ranked team lost six times since October and Nos. 1 and 2 lost on the same week three times in the last two months.

''The brass ring was there for a lot of different teams to grab it,'' SEC commissioner and BCS coordinator Mike Slive said during a conference call Sunday night. ''Sometimes they did and sometimes they didn't, and when they didn't it allowed two teams that were seen as two of the better teams in the country early in the year to find their way back.''

The rest of the BCS games are filled with teams that had every bit as good an argument as LSU for a spot in the title game.

In the Sugar Bowl, Georgia will play Hawaii. The Bulldogs (10-2) were fourth and idle coming into the final weekend - behind Missouri, West Virginia and Ohio State - but didn't automatically rise two spots the way coach Mark Richt thought they should. Richt felt even though the BCS rules state a team doesn't have to win its conference to play in the national title game, the fact the Bulldogs didn't play for the SEC championship was held against them.

''At least we shouldn't have gotten disqualified before we got started,'' he said.