RUSSO ON FOOTBALL: Which are the best two teams?

Thursday, Dec. 2, 2004 | 8:47 a.m.

Southern California is No. 1 in the polls and the BCS standings.

The computers prefer Oklahoma.

Auburn's victories over Georgia and Tennessee might be the season's two most impressive performances.

The Trojans, Sooners and Tigers are all 11-0, but the Bowl Championship Series can only accommodate two teams in its national title game.

On Saturday, USC is at UCLA, Oklahoma plays Colorado in the Big 12 title game, and Auburn faces Tennessee again, this time for the Southeastern Conference championship. All the top teams are big favorites and could very well be 12-0 when the BCS pairings are announced Sunday.

"The key thing is you have three equally worthy and deserving teams," BCS expert Jerry Palm said.

So who should be going to the Orange Bowl? It's a tough call, but the thinking here is that the two best teams are USC and Auburn.

USC

The Trojans were anointed the team to beat before the season and they generally are regarded as a team deserving of a shot at the BCS trophy. The Trojans have been an overwhelming No. 1 in The Associated Press Top 25 and the coaches poll all season.

"Southern Cal hasn't really given anyone a reason to change their minds," Palm said. "I'm not sure they are so much better, as the voting would indicate. Or even better at all."

The Trojans have flaws. Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush and other playmakers make up for an offense line that is just OK, and an athletic front seven makes enough big plays to hide the defense's limitations.

USC's conference, the Pac-10, produced just five bowl teams. Cal is the only team in the conference that can stack up to USC, and the Bears came one last well-executed slant pattern away from winning at the Los Angeles Coliseum.

The Trojans beat two other teams that are currently ranked - Arizona State and Virginia Tech - but lackluster performances against Stanford (4-7) and Oregon State (6-5) have been brushed over.

Auburn and Oklahoma have faced greater scrutiny.

OKLAHOMA

The Sooners have been No. 2 behind USC in the polls all season. But some close games and a stretch of poor defense made Oklahoma look vulnerable.

It started at Kansas State, where the Sooners trailed at halftime before winning 31-21.

Oklahoma escaped at Oklahoma State and Texas A&M in consecutive weeks. A missed field goal in the waning seconds kept the Cowboys from forcing overtime, and the Sooners rallied to beat the Aggies by seven points.

Those games exposed Oklahoma's pass defense.

But Oklahoma's offense has never been better under coach Bob Stoops. Heisman Trophy winner Jason White and freshman running back Adrian Peterson allow the Sooners to wing it around or grind it out.

The Sooners' best win, 12-0 over Texas on a neutral field, tends to get downplayed because OU owns the Longhorns. But if USC gets credit for being the only team to beat Cal, shouldn't the Sooners get kudos for being the only team to beat Texas?

"They have been maybe the most consistently excellent of those three teams when you consider who they played and how they've played," Palm said.

AUBURN

Tigers coach Tommy Tuberville has argued that his team was at a disadvantage because it started the season out of the top 10 in both polls.

Auburn leaped into the national title race on the first weekend of October with a 34-10 win at Tennessee.

The Tigers displayed a balanced offense with the nation's best set of tailbacks - Ronnie Brown and Carnell Williams - and vastly improved quarterback Jason Campbell. The defense proved devastatingly fast, though undersized.

But Auburn has not been tested enough: The SEC let the Tigers down. Their division rivals, other than LSU, all had down years, and the luck of the draw put Kentucky on the schedule, instead of, say, Florida or South Carolina.

And the Tigers picked the wrong year to go ultra-light on the nonconference slate.

Still, a 24-6 victory over Georgia was startlingly easy and gave them, like Oklahoma and USC, three victories against currently ranked teams.

"They've had a schedule of extremes," Palm said. "They either had to be really ready to play or they could take the week off."

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Ralph D. Russo covers college football for The Associated Press. Write to him at rrusso@ap.org