BCS Buster

[boffo]

College football experts, imagine the following scenario, which I think is realistic: Alabama and Oregon end the year with one loss and many dominating wins over strong opponents. Ohio State, Michigan State and either Oklahoma or Nebraska go undefeated against lesser, but still fairly strong schedules. Boise State and TCU go undefeated against

Comments

[foreverbeach]

Ohio State would meet Oklahoma in the BCS Championship Game because those are the two all-time media darlings (not including USC). Look at the disparity between how those teams are ranked week to week over the last decade vs their results in their bowl games. And yet the voters remain undeterred in overranking them year after year.

[foreverbeach]

Now, if only OSU, TCU, and Boise State go undefeated, with Bama and one or two other SEC teams having one loss, and Oklahoma, Nebraska, Mich State, etc. all having one loss, then Ohio State gets to molest one of those two other undefeated teams in the BCSNCG.

[boffo]

After thinking about it more, this is my predicted order of priority:

1. Undefeated Ohio State
2. Undefeated Auburn
3. Undefeated Oregon
4. Undefeated Big XII Champ
5. One Loss Alabama
6. Undefeated Boise State
7. Undefeated Michigan State
8. One Loss Ohio State (If Big 10 Champ)
9. Undefeated TCU
10. One Loss SEC Champ other than Alabama
11. One Loss Oregon
12. One Loss Big 10 Champ other than Ohio State
13. One Loss Pac 10 Champ other than Oregon
14. Undefeated Utah

With the caveat that it won't be Ohio State and Michigan State, even if they're both undefeated. Also if Auburn beats Alabama and the SEC East champ, they might pass OSU. (They would certainly deserve to.) But the difference between 1 and 2 doesn't really matter.

Does that seem reasonable to you? By reasonable I mean a reasonable prediction of the BCS will say, rather than an accurate assessment of the best teams.

[foreverbeach]

I think that's mostly reasonable, but I have this gut feeling that TCU and Boise are going to get ranked higher than they would have in other years. There's a real move by pollsters to give weaker conferences more credit, especially in the wake of Utah's beating down over Bama a few years ago and such. So watch for a huge push to put Boise or TCU in the BCSNCG if one or both of them go undefeated again.

[boffo]

I agree there will be a push. But their schedules are such jokes that I don't think it will succeed. They should have scheduled more non-conference games against strong teams.

Can anyone deny that Alabama would have easily gone undefeated if they were playing the WAC instead of the SEC? Hell, Alabama's second string would have gone undefeated.

But of course it's the BCS, so who knows what can happen?