The University of Georgia football team arrives in New Orleans tomorrow. But the question that still looms is: Why?

By all rights, if not Bowl Championship Series reasoning, the Bulldogs should be pulling into the Big Easy on Jan. 2, just about the time the University of Hawai'i is leaving.

They should be passing at the airport, not on the field in the Superdome on Jan.1 in the Sugar Bowl.

Georgia should be there playing Ohio State or Southern California on Jan. 7 in the BCS national championship game. After all, isn't the title game supposed to match the two best in the nation?

And based upon the way the season ended, the Bulldogs (10-2) against the Buckeyes (11-1) or Trojans (10-2) sure looked the best at the end of this most bizarre of football campaigns. Logic would seem to dictate that if you are the No. 4 team in the republic, which the Bulldogs were heading into the final week, and two of the teams ahead of you lose and you don't, that you become No. 1 or No. 2. But that isn't how it unfolded and the head scratching continues to this day.

Instead, Georgia dropped to No. 5 while Louisiana State (11-2) did a leap frog of five places to get the Jan. 7 date with Ohio State.

The fear here was that it would be the Warriors who might get vaulted over in the final BCS standings and left out of the BCS all together. It came as a relief the Warriors would not have to travel 4,214 miles to play LSU smack dab in its backyard bayou with upwards of 50,000 people screaming "Tiger bait!" But that relief was soon tempered by the fact the Warriors got emerging Georgia, winner of six in a row, as an opponent.

Now, given the choice of playing the Tigers' fans or the Bulldogs' football team, you take the fans — and plug the ear holes on your helmets. But UH wasn't given a choice. Of course, after the bowl put UH in a position to punt on tickets, the Warriors might have ended up playing the Saints if it were left to negotiations.

What this leaves UH with is its best opponent since the 2005 season opener against two-time national champion-in-waiting USC. Maybe five times in UH's 30-plus years of Division I football the Warriors have played an opponent of this caliber. And most of them were named USC or Nebraska and prohibitive favorites. Back when Nebraska was feared, not a punchline, and had Heisman Trophy and Outland Award winners, that is.

Still, you'll hear no griping from the Warriors or their fans. When you are UH, you're glad to be at the New Year's party at all. Who you dance with is a bonus.

After the schedule UH endured, the Warriors just wanted to prove themselves against the best opponent available.

But who knew that's what they would get with the Bulldogs curiously headed to New Orleans tomorrow?

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.

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