The new Bowl Championship Series formula is creating the same old confusion.

While Southern California took the top spot in the reworked BCS standings’ debut Monday, look who’s second: Miami. The Hurricanes edged Oklahoma, a strong No. 2 behind USC in both the Associated Press Top 25 and the coaches poll.

Put in place after last season’s split national championship, this year’s stripped-down BCS formula relies more on the AP and ESPN/USA Today polls. The idea was to ensure that when there is a clear consensus top two in the polls — as USC and Oklahoma have been all season — the BCS standings would reflect it.

Instead, BCS officials again had to do some explaining.

“It’s obviously very early. It’s important that there not be an overreaction to this poll,” BCS coordinator and Big 12 Conference commissioner Kevin Weiberg said, adding that when he saw Miami ahead of Oklahoma, “I was a little surprised, to tell you the truth.”

Weiberg noted that the top two teams in the first BCS standings never have played in the championship game.

The AP and coaches polls each count for one-third of a team’s total score under the new formula. The other third comes from six computer rankings, and that’s where Miami made up the difference over the Sooners. The Hurricanes are ranked fourth in the AP media poll and third in the coaches poll, but have the second-most points in the computer rankings. Oklahoma came out fifth in the computer rankings.

“At this point in the season, it just generates a lot of discussion among the people who like to talk about college football,” Sooners coach Bob Stoops said. “In that sense, it’s a positive because it keeps people talking about our sport. But it really makes no difference where anyone is ranked today.”