THEY'LL GO DOWN IN HISTORY, RIGHT?

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

This much is certain after the announcement Monday that USC has risen to No. 2 in the weekly Bowl Championship Series rankings: If the Trojans win their next three games, they will win a place in football history.

Like it or not.

It could be a happy ending: Trojans beat Arizona, UCLA and Oregon State, hold onto a spot in the BCS top two, earn a trip to the sport's official championship game for the first time, presumably to face unbeaten and No. 1 Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans on Jan. 4.

But it could be a sour ending, miserable enough to make the faithful forget last year's bittersweet winter: Trojans beat Arizona, UCLA and Oregon State, lose ground in the BCS ratings anyway, settle for a trip to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on Jan. 1, gnash their teeth watching other kids play for the national championship.

The happy scenario puts USC in line to win its ninth national title.

But the sour one puts USC in line to be the martyr to the very worthwhile cause of breaking up the BCS.

Either way, it's history for the Trojans.

How to root?

The Trojans could end up as a nightmare for promoters of the BCS, the system enacted five years ago to combine the Associated Press and USA Today/ESPN polls, a roster of computer ratings, schedule-strength statistics, and a tablespoon of eye-of-newt into rankings that determine which two teams play in the designated national-title bowl game.

How bad would it look if the Trojans, identified by the BCS this week as the country's second-strongest team, do everything right the rest of the way and sweep the rest of their regular-season schedule, yet tumble to No. 3 or 4 and lose any shot at the title?

Though it's not the most likely outcome, it's possible.

The once-beaten Trojans' remaining games are against three unranked teams with a combined won-lost record of 13-14.

Meanwhile: Once-beaten Florida State, No. 3 on the BCS list, has opponents with a combined 18-10 record, including Florida, ranked 17th by the Associated Press. And once-beaten Miami, No. 4, has opponents with a combined 20-11 record, including 18th-ranked Tennessee and 25th-ranked Pitt.

As far as the BCS software is concerned, the Trojans might have peaked too soon, beating then-sixth-ranked Auburn in their opener and then-sixth-ranked Washington State on Saturday.

The strength-of-schedule-o-meter could end up costing the Trojans down the stretch, leaving them teased and disappointed and the angriest of the teams shouting, ``We're No. 2!''

This could turn into the biggest controversy yet for the BCS. Not big enough, maybe, to persuade the six major conferences to spurn ABC-TV's $900 million. Big enough, though, to demonstrate that a two-team ``playoff'' is no substitute for a four-, eight- or 16-team elimination tournament - and little improvement on the polls-and-bowls system that determined national championships for decades.

The worst ongoing lie in sports is that the BCS is a step in the right direction for the only college sport that doesn't settle its national championship on the field, court, track, rink or mat.

While the BCS guarantees that teams identified as No. 1 and No. 2 will meet in a bowl game - which wasn't certain in the old days - does so only after weeks of computer confusion that turns attention from the field to the inherent inequities of NCAA scheduling.

A day and a half after USC throttled Washington State at the Coliseum, in the most one-sided big game of the college football season, in front of the largest crowd of the year West of Texas, to earn huge play in The New York Times and Sports Illustrated, to climb to No. 2 in the writers' and coaches' rankings, Los Angeles awoke Monday eager to hear whether the BCS computer thinks the Trojans are any good.

It was 15 or 45 past the hour, I forget which, when I got up. I switched on the radio for the sports news.

``The new BCS rankings,'' sports anchorman Chuck Madden said, ``come out this afternoon. Steve Grad will have them for you when they're available. USC could move up to the all-important No. 2 spot.''

Years ago, fans leaned close to their radios to hear the play-by-play of actual games. Now, we're supposed to tune in to hear somebody read numbers out of a computer.

That's progress, college football style.

If the Trojans sweep the rest of their games, one of two good things will come of it. They'll go to the national-championship game. Or they'll be much-deserved trouble for the BCS.

Winners either way.

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Photo:

Will USC players Shaun Cody (84) and Frostee Rucker be celebrating a Sugar Bowl or Rose Bowl appearance in early January?

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer