I hate the BCS.

Even if Cal beats Southern Miss in our final game of the season, we still might be out of the BCS (and therefore, the Rose Bowl) if either:

1) Texas looks extremely impressive beating Texas A&M, and passes us in the BCS standings (they're only .02 BCS points behind us).
2) Texas loses. Boise State is in position to move into the top 6 of the BCS, since they're # 7 right now. As a mid-major team, Boise State would go to a BCS bowl ranked #6 while we wouldn't, even though we would be ranked #4.

Basically, it means we need Texas to win, but not look that impressive doing so.

Say Texas is leading by 14 points early in the 4th quarter. Do we want Texas A&M to score a touchdown, making scenario #1 less likely? Yes, but this would also make scenario #2 more likely, so maybe not...

And if one of these disastrous scenarios happen, the Rose Bowl would be something like Virginia Tech vs Michigan instead of Cal vs Michigan. The Rose Bowl has never really been thrilled with being a part of the BCS, and if that happened, they might just want to leave altogether...

Of course, if college football had a playoff system, Cal might still be very strong contenders for the national championship...