Like I said before, LSU wasn't really the 2003 national champion. Only true, blue national champs fall apart a year or two later because of transgressions and eventual NCAA investigations. And the NCAA isn't sniffing in Baton Rouge these days.

(Before we go on, that was sarcasm, people; please, enough of the e-mails about 2003. Besides, I was but a lone dissenting vote for the Tigers among the TSN staff. If you have any further questions, please see college football managing editor Steve Greenberg. He makes those final championship calls, anyway. Now, on with the show).

Seems as though the BCS is going to look into USC's off-field potential NCAA issues and could hand down a verdict after the investigation is complete. That verdict could include, in the harshest of penalties, stripping the Trojans of the national title.

The almighty, all-powerful BCS -- specifically, the dudes who run the thing -- have now officially stepped over the line. Since when does the BCS, a fun little conglomerate of bowl games to spice up the postseason, become an enforcement arm of the NCAA?

NCAA goof Myles Brand: "Mr. Carroll, meet our enforcement team: Boris and Rocco from the BCS. They're here to take your championship."

Petey: "Go ahead, we still have the AP title from '03, baby!"

It's bad enough that we have to choke down this convoluted formula they give us (I'd just as soon go back to the old bowl tie-ins and see how it all shakes out -- you know, like it worked for the previous, oh, five decades prior to 1998). Now we have to sit and listen to their holier-than-thou standards for winning "their" championship.

Just throw a garish green jacket on the winning coach and call it a day, will you Hootie?

There will be major changes in store for the 2006-07 BCS. First, television rights (with the exception of the Rose Bowl Game) will shift to FOX, while ABC will continue telecasting the Rose Bowl. Second, the addition of a BCS National Championship Game separate from the games already in the BCS matching the top two teams in the BCS rankings at the site of one of the games one week following the Bowl Games as the current rotation will continue (as an example, the new Cardinals Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, which is the site of the Fiesta Bowl, will serve as the host of the 2006 championship game) and due to that, the addition of two more "at large" teams will take place with the same rules under use. Had this system been in place in 2005, Oregon and Miami (FL) would have played in a BCS game instead of playing in the Holiday Bowl and the Peach Bowl respectively.

2007 schedule

To be played following 2006 season.

Monday, January 1 - Rose Bowl Game presented by Citi

Monday, January 1 - Tostitos Fiesta Bowl

Tuesday, January 2 - Fed Ex Orange Bowl

Wednesday, January 3 - Allstate Sugar Bowl

Monday, January 8 - BCS National Championship (Glendale, Arizona)

2008 schedule

To be played following 2007 season.

 Tuesday, January 1 - Rose Bowl Game

Tuesday, January 1 - Sugar Bowl

Wednesday, January 2 - Fiesta Bowl

Thursday, January 3 - Orange Bowl

Tuesday, January 8 - BCS National Championship (New Orleans)

2009 schedule

To be played following 2008 season.

 Thursday, January 1 - Rose Bowl Game

Thursday, January 1 - Orange Bowl

Friday, January 2 - Sugar Bowl

Saturday, January 3 - Fiesta Bowl

Thursday, January 8 - BCS National Championship (Miami Lakes, Florida)

2010 schedule

To be played following 2009 season.

Friday, January 1 - Rose Bowl Game

Friday, January 1 - Sugar Bowl

Saturday, January 2 - Fiesta Bowl

Monday, January 4 or Tuesday, January 5 - Orange Bowl (NOTE: Date will depend on 2009 NFL scheduling.)

Friday, January 8 - BCS National Championship (Pasadena, California)