IN THIS POLL, COLLEGE OPENERS RANK HIGH.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

Every major American sport celebrates opening day in its own big way, baseball with the customary baseline introductions, red-white-and-blue bunting and Navy flyovers, pro basketball with the traditional guess-Shaq's-weight contest, pro football with the much-looked-forward-to release of the first injuries list.

But college football does opening day best.

It cuts right to the national-championship chase.

Can USC build on its late-2002 momentum and make a run at the national championship without Heisman Trophy winner Carson Palmer in 2003? Ask again around supper time today, by which time the season opener between eighth-ranked USC and sixth-ranked Auburn will be over in Alabama and one of those teams' title hopes will be cooked.

Will defending champion Ohio State, No. 2 in the preseason rankings, survive without suspended running back Maurice Clarett? Can Washington, No. 17, shake off its coaching turmoil? If you can wait for the 11 o'clock news, by then their game will be over in Columbus and one of those teams will be old news.

Should No. 11 Georgia, No. 21 Wisconsin, No. 23 Colorado State, No. 24 Oklahoma State, No. 25 TCU and unranked luminaries Colorado and Nebraska prepare to move up or pack up? The answers might be clear in the next few hours. All open with games in which they're slim favorites or underdogs.

As long as the people who run college are stalling on establishing a full-fledged national playoff, instead of asking us to be satisfied with the contrived Bowl Championship Series they should stand up and declare, ``We're different from all the other sports and we're proud of it!''

No lengthy preseason, NFL-style. No ``It's still early,'' Dodgers-style. No ``We'll flip the switch when the playoffs start,'' Lakers-style. No ``It's all about the hot playoff goalie,'' Mighty Ducks-style.

A college football team has to be ready to go.

``It'll be a good indication of where we are, how far we've come,'' USC coach Pete Carroll said of today's game, leaving out the part about where the Trojans are going.

USC likes to remember 1974, when John McKay's second-to-last Trojans team lost its opener to Arkansas but went undefeated (with a tie against California) the rest of the season to get UPI's No. 1 ranking and AP's No. 2 to share the national title with Oklahoma.

But that's the lone reassuring tale in its history of opening-day failures.

There also was 1975, when the Trojans lost their opener to Missouri in John Robinson's debut, won the rest of their games but couldn't get higher than No. 2 in both polls.

And, since 1960, there were five other times when the Trojans were in the top 10 going into their opener, lost it and never climbed back to their preseason rankings.

It's not just a USC thing.

In the past four seasons - that's as long as I've been tracking week-to- week poll shifts - 19 ranked teams lost their season-opening game. Of which, 16 went on to finish the season unranked.

As for losing the opening game - or any game - and hoping to contend for the national title: In the five-year BCS era, every champion has gone through the season undefeated.

College football, which has had a few games already, begins in earnest today with 16 of the AP's top 25 teams in action. Three open Sunday and Monday, four on Sept. 6.

There's general relief that the sport's summer of scandals is over, that it can move on from Mike Price and Rick Neuheisel and the Big East-ACC tug-of-war.

And that feeling is understandable, as long as you think coaches getting fired for moral turpitude is a lot more unpleasant than coaches getting fired for losing to Penn State.

Really, relief is surviving opening day.

USC's national-title balloon is as puncture-prone as anybody's today.

It has a sophomore quarterback without a college pass attempt, Matt Leinart, replacing a Heisman winner. It has a sophomore rusher with 207 career yards, Hershel Dennis, and three freshmen running backs replacing 1,821 yards worth of seniors. It has a freshman, Darnell Bing, replacing All-American strong safety Troy Polamalu.

But their debuts will be easier if the experienced offensive and defensive lines live up to their billing. This could turn out to be a very good team.

The good news is that the Trojans will have every chance to prove themselves national-title-caliber, with four of the preseason top 25 on the schedule.

The bad news is that the toughest of the four is lurking in Auburn, Ala., on the cruelest - and best - opening day in sports.