Tigers campaigning for share of national title

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- In college football, it's never too late to get in some last-minute campaigning.

No. 3 Auburn did just that, pitching its Sugar Bowl matchup with ninth-ranked Virginia Tech as a co-national championship game.

"You always have hope," Auburn athletic director David Housel said. "Winston Churchill was right. Never, never, never, never, never give up."

So, on the eve of Monday night's Sugar Bowl, Tigers coach Tommy Tuberville made his pitch: Auburn (12-0) deserves at least a share of the national title if it beats the Hokies.

"There are two national championship games," Tuberville insisted. "There's one here at the Sugar Bowl, and there's another one at the Orange Bowl."

Never mind that it's No. 1 Southern Cal vs. No. 2 Oklahoma in the Orange -- and the winner of Tuesday night's game is assured of being voted BCS national champion in the coaches' poll.

Auburn's hopes are based on an unlikely scenario: The Tigers rout Virginia Tech, Oklahoma beats USC in an ugly game and enough writers in The Associated Press media poll opt to put Auburn ahead of the Sooners on their final ballots.

"I think one of the reasons it's so important that Auburn win this game is that the BCS will continue to be tweaked in the manner that it should be tweaked," Housel said. "If Virginia Tech wins, all the people who are criticizing the BCS now will say, 'Oh well, the BCS works.'"

This being college football -- where champions are decided by human opinion and computer-generated rankings, not one of those wacky playoff systems that every other sport uses -- the Tigers sounded like a candidate in the waning days of a political campaign.

Said Tuberville: "Obviously, we feel like there's one more vote. We'll be auditioning."

Overlooked in this whole process is Virginia Tech (10-2), which must feel like a Ford Pinto on display at a classic car show.

"Nobody's really giving us a chance," defensive end Noland Burchette said. "Every commentator, every news reporter I see, they think it's going to be a blowout."

Not that anyone on the Auburn side has done anything to denigrate the Hokies. If anything, the Tigers have gone out of their way to portray Virginia Tech as being just as good as those teams that made it to Miami.

All part of the political process.

"They probably should have beaten USC," Auburn center Jeremy Ingle said. "If not for some phantom interference call" -- a disputed penalty against the Hokies -- "they'd probably be undefeated right now. Then, we'd all be talking about us, Virginia Tech and Oklahoma."

The Hokies' other loss, 17-16 to North Carolina State, would have gone the other way if Brandon Pace's 43-yard field goal attempt on the final play had been a couple of feet to the left.

But Virginia Tech, playing its first season in the Atlantic Coast Conference, bounced back to win its last eight games and the league championship.

The Sugar Bowl opponents have plenty of similarities: all-star quarterbacks (Auburn's Jason Campbell, Virginia Tech's Bryan Randall), a pair of top running backs (Carnell Williams and Ronnie Brown for the Tigers, Mike Imoh and Cedric Humes representing the Hokies) and two of the stingiest defenses in the country (Auburn ranks first nationally at 11.2 points per game, Virginia Tech is third at 12.6).

Most striking, both teams bounced back from disappointing seasons a year ago. Virginia Tech was third in the AP rankings after a 6-0 start, only to lose five of its last seven games. Auburn also went 8-5 after being touted as a national championship contender, nearly costing Tuberville his job.

"I had already filled out my application at Wal-Mart to be a greeter," Tuberville said Sunday, managing to joke about the ordeal. "I was done."

Of course, no one at Auburn is laughing about the current predicament -- a 12-0 team that finds itself shut out of the reputed national championship game.

Some players don't even plan to watch the Orange Bowl. Others wish they could be in Miami, just to see for themselves if USC and Oklahoma truly are the two best teams in the country.

"What do those teams have that we don't have?" linebacker Travis Williams asked. "I would like to see firsthand why people think they're better than we are."

While there's nothing that can be done this season, Ingle and some of his teammates are bitter about the continued resistance to a playoff system. Despite the possibility of another disputed champion, the position of university presidents and many coaches makes it clear that nothing will be done other than some minor tweaking.

"They need to clean all this mess up," Ingle said. "This game is about the players. It's not about the officials and administrators."

Clearly, Auburn wants to do its part to keep the controversy raging.