BOISE, Idaho » Boise State president Bob Kustra is taking another swing at the Bowl Championship Series, this time condemning the system that determines the national championship and other postseason games for being allowed to operate under a shroud of secrecy.

Kustra dashed off an e-mail to fellow university presidents and conference commissioners yesterday, one day after analysts discovered an error in the final BCS rankings. The glitch caused BCS officials to revise the computer rankings, moving Boise State up one spot to No. 10 and dropping LSU to No. 11.

The adjustment didn’t have any impact on the Broncos’ postseason date in the MAACO Bowl in Las Vegas with No. 20 Utah. But it gave Kustra, a vocal and persistent BCS critic, an opportunity to blast officials from the BCS and the NCAA for the system’s lack of public accountability.

"How many times have we heard calls for transparency on our campuses and how many times have we shared our governance and communicated with our faculties and other constituencies in transparent fashion," Kustra wrote in an e-mail.

The discrepancy was discovered by Jerry Palm, who runs the websites collegebcs.com and collegerpi.com, in the Colley Matrix computer ratings, one of six used by the BCS.

Wesley Colley said Palm, who verifies the Colley Matrix ratings, noticed the results of an FCS playoff game involving Appalachian State and Western Illinois had not been included in the database used to generate the ratings.

BCS executive director Bill Hancock said in a statement that he was "deeply disturbed" when he learned of the mistake.

"This error should not have happened and is unacceptable. The final standings have been corrected. Fortunately, it had no effect on any team’s eligibility for the BCS games. But the simple fact that it could have means this issue will be near the top of the agenda for the conference commissioners’ annual review next spring," Hancock said.

Cunningham leads College Hall of Fame class

It was years after Sam Cunningham ran roughshod over the last all-white Alabama football team that he understood the significance of that game in 1970 between Southern California and Bear Bryant’s Crimson Tide.

Cunningham ran for 135 yards and two touchdowns on 12 carries and USC beat the Tide 42-21 in Birmingham that day in the first game of a career that earned him a place in the College Football Hall of Fame.

Cunningham was among 14 former players and coaches who were inducted into the hall at the National Football Foundation’s awards banquet yesterday.

Among the other inductees were the late Pat Tillman of Arizona State, former Wisconsin coach Barry Alvarez and 1991 Heisman Trophy winner Desmond Howard of Michigan.

Pitt coach steps down

Dave Wannstedt is out as Pitt football coach following a disappointing season in which the Panthers were big favorites to win a weak Big East Conference, only to finish 7-5 and qualify for a minor bowl.

Pitt called a news conference yesterday to announce that the former Bears and Dolphins coach was stepping down, under pressure from athletic director Steve Pederson. Wannstedt, highly respected by Pitt’s administration, is expected to stay with the school in a noncoaching position.