Tommy Tuberville wants what he believes is rightly his: the 2004 national title.
On Monday, Southern Cal was forced to vacate the 2004 BCS championship because of numerous NCAA violations. That year, Tuberville led Auburn to a 13-0 record, but it was left out of the BCS title game, which featured two other undefeated teams — USC and Oklahoma. USC crushed the Sooners 55-19 in the Orange Bowl, while Auburn wound up finishing No. 2 in both polls after it beat Virginia Tech 16-13 in the Sugar Bowl.
It should be noted that Utah, under then-coach Urban Meyer, also finished undefeated that year with a 12-0 record and a 35-7 victory over Pittsburgh in the Fiesta Bowl. Utah finished fourth in the final Associated Press poll.
Still, Tuberville — now at Texas Tech — wants a do-over.
“We never complained when they went by the process the last time, and they should go by the process this time,” Tuberville told espn.com. “If they were ineligible, I think they should have a revote and let people vote on it and decide who they think was the best team that year. If everybody thinks it was Oklahoma, that’s fine. If everybody thinks it was Auburn, that’s fine.”
Tuberville better get in line, and the one for those who were done wrong by cheating and have every right to call for a do-over is a long one.
No one perhaps is due more than Hank Aaron and Roger Maris, both of whom were wronged in the record books by steroid cheaters. Barry Bonds broke Aaron’s career home run record of 755, and Mark McGwire broke Maris’ single-season home run mark of 61, which was broken again by Bonds’ 73 homers in 2001.
The line of the wronged in baseball is lengthy. Mike Greenwell of the Boston Red Sox finished second to Jose Canseco in the 1988 AL MVP voting, but Canseco later admitted in his book “Juiced” that his numbers were propped up by steroid use.
Greenwell called for a do-over when Canseco revealed his cheating.
“I do have a problem with losing the MVP to an admitted steroids user,” Greenwell told a Florida paper.
He pointed out, like most who have been wronged by cheating in sports, that it cost him money.
“Every time you renegotiate a contract, if you’re an MVP, you have different level of bargaining power,” Greenwell said.
It gets complicated. What about the teams that were denied a shot at the Final Four in 1996 when Massachusetts’ appearance was taken off the books after Marcus Camby was ruled ineligible. The entire 2007-2008 season of Memphis basketball was wiped out because of academic violations. What did those teams that lost to Memphis really wind up losing as a result of the violations?
We will never know because there is no such a thing as a do-over.
Examiner columnist Thom Loverro is the co-host of “The Sports Fix” from noon to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on ESPN980 and espn980.com. Contact him at [email protected].
