Top 50 Cal Sports Moments – No. 39: BCS B.S., 2004

Cal thought it was going to the Rose Bowl in 2004, but Mack Brown and the BCS system denied it. Golden Bears fans were angry.

Texas coach Mack Brown was the bad guy in Cal fans' minds in 2004 / Brendan Maloney-USA TODAY Sports

As the Pac-12 Conference era comes to a close after more than a century we count down the top 50 moments involving Cal athletics.

THE MOMENT: Shortly after 2 p.m. on Sunday, December 5, 2004, TV broadcasters on the bowl selection show announced that Texas had passed Cal in the rankings to claim the No. 4 spot in the final BCS standings, giving Texas – and not Cal – an automatic berth in the Rose Bowl. Cal fans, desperate for a berth in the Rose Bowl, were devastated by the result and angry at the BCS system.

THE STORY: You need to understand that Cal fans in 2004, if given a choice, would prefer the Bears go to the Rose Bowl rather than the national championship game. Cal had not been to the Rose Bowl since the 1958 season, and that game represented the Holy Grail for Cal supporters.

Cal finished the 2004 regular season 10-1, its only loss being a 23-17 defeat on the road against eventual national champion USC when Cal could not score the winning touchdown after getting a first down on the USC 9-yard line with 1:47 remaining.

Cal was ranked No. 4 in both human polls as well as in the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) standings for each of the three weeks leading up to Cal’s final regular-season game – a December 4 road game against Southern Mississippi, which had been originally scheduled for September 16 but was postponed because of concerns about an approaching hurricane. That No. 4 BCS ranking was key, because a 2001 rule change guaranteed that a team ranked in the top four of the final BCS standings would go to one of the four BCS games, which, in Cal’s case, would be the Rose Bowl.

Texas (10-1, including a 12-0 loss to No. 2 Oklahoma) was No. 5 in the BCS rankings at that point and had played its final regular-season game the previous weekend, beating Texas A&M. Texas coach Mack Brown used the opportunity in the postgame TV interview to lobby for his team to be elevated to the No. 4 BCS spot. He also lobbied for his team in every newspaper interview, annoying Cal fans.

It was suggested that Cal might need to beat Southern Miss (6-4) by a sizable margin to ensure it kept the No. 4 slot, but the Bears only won by a final score of 26-16. Leading by 10, Cal got the ball at the Southern Miss 36-yard line with 3:33 left in the game, but instead of going for another touchdown, Tedford called seven straight running plays, including an Aaron Rodgers kneel-down at the Southern Miss 22-yard line with 35 seconds left to run out the clock.

Rejecting the notion that Cal should have tried to run up the score, Cal running back J.J. Arrington, who had rushed for 261 yards that day, said, “You’ve got to have class.”

Tedford did not publicly lobby on behalf of Cal, and the next day, Cal was ranked No. 4 in both human polls again. But the BCS formula calls for the number of voting points each team gets to be part of the calculation.  Cal received 48 fewer voting points in the coaches poll than it had the previous week, and 85 fewer voting points in the AP writers poll. Two voting coaches had ranked Cal seventh and one had the Bears eighth.

That loss in voting points along with BCS computers’ ranking of Cal at No. 6, enabled Texas to pass Cal for the No. 4 spot in the final BCS standings, even though the Longhorns were No. 5 in the final regular-season coaches poll and No. 6 in the AP poll.

The announcement on December 5 brought an outcry from the Cal community, which was livid about the BCS system and Mack Brown.

Tedford said he “very, very disappointed” and received more than 100 emails that day from angry supportive Cal fans. USC coach Pete Carroll said, “I don’t see how this could happen. For Cal to fall for some reason, I don’t get it.” Even Mack Brown said, “I really feel sorry for Cal.”

As a result of that BCS outcome, AP declared that its rankings would no longer be part of the BCS formula, and the coaches poll changed its rules so that coaches who vote in the poll would have to be publicly identified. They voted voting anonymously in 2004.

Interestingly if the 2001 rule regarding a top-four ranking had not been passed, the Rose Bowl would have had its choice of a team and would have taken Cal from the Pac-10.

Cal ended up in the Holiday Bowl, losing to Texas Tech in a game that paid about $2 million to each team instead of the Rose Bowl, which paid up to $17 million to the teams involved – Texas (the winner) and Michigan.

Aaron Rodgers never forgave Mack Brown, as shown in this video of of a College Game Day in 2016:

Aaron Rodgers and Gameday guys predict Texas-ND. #Hookem pic.twitter.com/NoYVRII2O4

— Hookem Football (@hornsfootball) September 3, 2016

* Top Moment No. 40: Western Glory, 1899

* Top Moment No. 41 – Corvallis Minute, 1988

*Only specific acts that occurred while the team or athlete was at Cal were considered, and an accomplishment of a season or a career was not included unless it can be identified in a particular moment.

*Leslie Mitchell of the Cal Bears History twitter site aided in the selection of the top 50 moments.

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