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Since joining the Bowl Championship Series system, the Pac Ten has been the perennial odd-man out, and history repeated itself again as the Kansas Jayhawks were selected to play in the Orange Bowl, leaving Arizona State as the off-man out.
Pac Ten Commissioner Tom Hansen is likely not amused--but nor should be be surprised. The BCS has a history of giving the conference the short end of the stick.
In 2001, the Oregon Ducks were jumped over by a Nebraska team that lost its final game and left out of the Rose Bowl. Two years later, USC was ranked #1 in both human polls, but left out of the Title Game. A year later, Mack Brown lobbied enough pollsters to jump Cal for the final automatic qualifying spot and a Rose Bowl berth, and in 2005, Oregon missed an automatic BCS berth by one slot.
All week long, sports radio has been buzzing about tonight's Border War football game between Kansas and Missouri. The rivalry, we were told, dates back to before the Civil War. College Gameday repeated the myth this morning.
Today's Los Angeles Times, repeated the myth headline and again in the article, "The game is called the "Border War," and dates to before the Civil War, when Missouri was a slave state and Kansas a free state." It must be in somebody's press notes and no one has bothered to jog their memories about simple American history.
If I recall correctly, the Civil War began in South Carolina in 1861 and ended when the CSA surrendered in 1865. The first college football game was between Rutgers and Princeton four years later, and in fact, it was Rugby. College Football as we know it wasn't invented until 1875, when Tufts played Harvard. Kansas first played Missouri in the "Border War" in 1891.
Certainly the animus between the two states goes back to the Civil War, but only in SEC country--where some may believe the war never ended--could you say that the football game dates to before the Civil War.

While it was touch-and-go for a while, it looks like Notre Dame is out of the woods for achieving the worst statistical offense in the last nine years thanks to the porous defenses of Duke and the service academies. Saurian Sagacity announces that the Irish have improved to 235.8 yards per game, a healthy margin north of 2002 Rutgers record-setting futility 214 yards per game. By his calculations, the Irish will have to put up negative-27 yards against a Stanford that statistically rates as one of the worst in the country, giving up 455.3 yards per game.
Granted, nothing is impossible with this 07 Irish squad, but I think it's safe for the Rutgers lads to pop their champagne a la the '72 Dolphins and celebrate yet another year of their incredible record staying intact.
That being said, it will still take some luck for the Irish to finish out of last place in total offense. FIU has 79 fewer yards than the Irish, but they play one more game. Duke is the next closest team, but the Irish will have to outgain them by 299 yards this weekend. It's possible, since Duke's opponent, North Carolina, has a fairly respectable defense, ranked #35 and giving up 100 less yards per game than Stanford, Notre Dame's opponent.