Terry Mitchell

BCS Championship Analysis for the Top Six Teams



Posted: Wednesday, November 23, 2011

by Terry Mitchell
http://commenterry.blogs.com

With just two weeks left in the college football regular season (week 13 and the conference championship week), there are six teams that appear to still have realistic hopes for a berth in the BCS Championship Game, based on the latest BCS rankings. Some of them are still alive thanks only to the fact that Oklahoma State, Oregon, Oklahoma, and Clemson were all upset last weekend. Listed below are the teams still in contention, along with what needs to happen for them to make it to the big game.

1) LSU – Obviously, if the Tigers remain undefeated, they will go to the title game as the top-ranked team. But what if they lose? First, keep in mind that there is almost no way the Tigers could incur a second loss. If they lose to Arkansas and Auburn beats Alabama, Arkansas would go to the SEC Championship Game against Georgia as a result of the head-to-head tiebreaker. If they lose to Arkansas and Alabama beats Auburn, that would likely send Alabama to the SEC Championship Game due to the SEC's strange three-way division tiebreaker. That's because both Alabama and Arkansas, under this scenario, would probably end up ranked ahead of LSU after week 13, and Alabama would win the tiebreaker based on the fact that they won their head-to-head contest with Arkansas earlier this season. If the Tigers beat Arkansas, then their only possible loss can be to Georgia. With only one loss, they would still have a decent chance of going to the BCS Championship Game. The only one-loss scenario that would doom them would be if they lost to Arkansas and then Alabama defeated both Auburn and Georgia. Now if their only loss is to Georgia, the only the team that could pass them would be Alabama, but the Tigers would still play for the national title as the #2 team against the top-ranked Crimson Tide.

2) Alabama – It’s very simple for the Tide. If they lose to Auburn, they are out. If they beat Auburn, and LSU beats Arkansas, they are in. However, if they beat Auburn and Arkansas beats LSU, they will likely win the West division and head to the SEC Championship Game to take on Georgia, due to the SEC division tiebreaker described above. If that’s the case, they will also have to beat Georgia to get in.

3) Arkansas – The Razorbacks must beat LSU to have any hope of getting in. Then if Auburn beats Alabama, the Razorbacks will get a trip to the SEC Championship Game, where they must finish the job by defeating Georgia. But if Alabama defeats Auburn, the Razorbacks should be in, regardless of whether or not Alabama defeats Georgia in the SEC Championship Game.

4) Oklahoma State – The Cowboys will need to beat Oklahoma in the “Bedlam” game and then hope that either LSU or Georgia beats Arkansas and that Auburn beats Alabama.

5) Virginia Tech – First, the Hokies need to beat Virginia in their ACC finale and then defeat Clemson in the ACC Championship Game. Then they need to have LSU or Georgia beat Arkansas, Auburn beat Alabama, and Oklahoma beat Oklahoma State. They could also use a loss by Stanford to Notre Dame just to make sure the Cardinal do not jump over them.

6) Stanford – The Cardinal need to beat Notre Dame and have LSU or Georgia beat Arkansas, Auburn beat Alabama, Oklahoma beat Oklahoma State, and Virginia Tech lose either to Virginia or Clemson. If Oregon were to lose to Oregon State and the Cardinal won the Pac 12 Championship Game, they may not need the Virginia Tech loss, but I wouldn’t count on that.
Terry Mitchell is a software engineer, freelance writer, amateur political analyst, and blogger from Virginia, USA. He posts a least one article a day to his blog - http://commenterry.blogs.com - on subjects such as current events, politics, technology, society and culture, religion, health and well-being, self improvement, personal finance, trivia, and sports.

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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)
» left by Christofer French
 157 days 1 hour ago.
71 fans.
Excellent analysis.
» left by Terry Mitchell 157 days ago.
91 fans.
Well thank you, Christofer. I'm glad you liked it.
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