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Is USC the best football team in the country?
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Pete Carroll is doused in celebration after
defeating Penn State in the Rose Bowl.
(AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
At the end of USC's 38-24 victory over Penn State in the 2009 Rose Bowl, Trojans head coach Pete Carroll revealed to ABC's Lisa Salters how he really felt about his team:
They're the best in the country.
"I don't think anybody can beat us," he told her as cardinal and gold confetti streamed down in Pasadena.
It's something we've heard before.
The LA Times' Bill Plaschke wrote the same thing about the 2003 Orange Bowl champion edition led by Carson Palmer and Troy Polamalu, and other columnists expressed similar sentiments about last year's team that beat up on Illinois.
And just like in those years, it still doesn't matter.
Until college football adopts some kind of playoff system, being the best team in the country at the end of the season has nothing to do with being crowned national champion.
That distinction goes to the team that can navigate through their season undefeated. If you lose a game, all bets are off, as the Trojans, Longhorns, Crimson Tide, Red Raiders and Nittany Lions discovered this year.
Is it fair that one-loss Florida and one-loss Oklahoma are playing for the crystal football in Miami and those other teams are not? Maybe not, but they each forfeited control of their fate when they lost, handing it over to the computers and the pollsters.
In the case of the Trojans, they have no one to blame but themselves for underestimating a talented Oregon State team and failing to come to play on the one night it turned out they couldn't afford not to.
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