NO. 1 USC LOSES GROUND IN THE BCS.

Byline: - Scott Wolf 

No. 1-ranked USC lost ground in the Bowl Championship Series rankings Monday but will play for the national championship with a victory over UCLA next week.

Because of their near-loss to Fresno State, the Trojans (11-0) lost ground in the human polls to No. 2-ranked Texas and that allowed the Longhorns to close the gap to within .0016 of a point. Last week, Texas trailed by .0058.

But it's nearly irrelevant, because USC and Texas are comfortably ahead of No. 3 Penn State, so if both teams win their remaining games, the Trojans and Longhorns (10-0) will play for the national championship.

USC finishes its season Dec. 3 against UCLA while Texas plays Texas A&M on Friday and the Big 12 championship game on Dec. 3.

``Our goal is to win the (Pacific-10) conference outright, that's what it's about, so we can go to the Rose Bowl every year and own that thing,'' USC coach Pete Carroll said.

Texas remains first in four of the five computer polls employed by the BCS while USC is first in one computer ranking. But computer rankings make up just 33 percent of the formula while the top 25 polls comprise the other 67 percent.

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