Mike Celizic

PISCATAWAY, N.J. - Forget about who’s No. 1. The real question today is, who’s No. 3.

Until Thursday night, it was Louisville, which was just peachy for the artificial championship system run by the BCS. The Cardinals had already won what everyone thought was their big game against West Virginia a week earlier. If they could dispose of uppity Rutgers, the little football school that never could, all that remained was for Ohio State and Michigan to sort out who would be rated first at season’s end, with Louisville sliding into the second slot.

But Louisville lost to Rutgers in the greatest sporting moment ever witnessed on the banks of the old Raritan; a moment 137 years in the making. It was an impressive win, the stuff of which champions are forged, a 21-point comeback from an 18-point deficit to the nation’s second best offensive team.

Rutgers came into the game ranked 13th in the BCS and anywhere from 13th to 15th in the polls. By rights, the win should vault the Scarlet Knights into the upper reaches of the Top 10. By reality, they’ll be lucky to get up to No. 8.

Of one thing you can be certain: into the vacuum left by Louisville’s defeat will swarm every coach and publicist of every major conference and every one-loss team, pounding the press tables and arguing their case to be ranked third and be in line for a championship game that is more likely than ever to be denounced as a fraud.

Texas, which lost at the beginning of the season to the Buckeyes, has been lobbying furiously all year for a spot in the title game. Urban Meyer at Florida has been going out of his way to bad-mouth the Big East as a conference that lacks the depth and talent of the SEC. If Cal beats USC, it will want a shot. If USC beats Oregon, Cal and Notre Dame, it will demand the right to play the winner of Michigan-Ohio State. The Irish also could put up a fight by beating USC. Auburn is another one-loss team that thinks it belongs in the big game. There’s Arkansas, which could win the SEC tournament and stake its own claim. Better believe the Wolverines-Buckeyes loser will also state their case if the game isn't a blowout.

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And yipping furiously and jumping up and down like a Chihuahua on speed is undefeated Boise State, which could go undefeated from now until the troops come home and still not play for a title. That’s what it gets for playing in the Western Athletic Conference, which isn’t a BCS conference.

But what about Rutgers, the team that invented college football in 1869 and didn’t learn how to play it until the last couple of years? Rutgers, whose fans could give Cubs fans lessons in the true meaning of unrequited love. Rutgers, the team that last beat a ranked opponent in 1988 and until Thursday had never played in a game in which both it and its opponent were in the Top 25. Rutgers, which was always lucky to get even two beat reporters to its practices and is suddenly the darling of the New York media, with the national guys starting to pile on.

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You can bet your house, your wife, your kids, your dog, your truck, your Harley and your beer-can collection that the boys from the BCS are at this moment lighting candles in front of the shrine of Amos Alonzo Stagg praying their hearts out that somebody beats Rutgers before the regular season is done.

Three teams have a shot at that assignment: Cincinnati on Nov. 18, Syracuse the following week and West Virginia in the season’s final game. Cincinnati might hope to catch the Knights still benumbed by their 28-25 win over Louisville. What works against that hope is that the win was on a Thursday night, giving the team three days to come down off their euphoric cloud and get back to business.

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