 "Photo: Andrew Rogers; The Daily Texan")
Barring the chance of four of the current top five teams losing in the final weeks of the season, the Bowl Champion Series Championship Game will almost certainly feature a Big 12 Southeastern Conference showdown.
Currently ranked No. 1, Alabama will face the one-loss, No. 4-ranked Florida Gators in the SEC Championship Game on Dec. 6 with the winner likely going on to play for the national championship. More intriguingly, the other three of the top five teams are all from Big 12 South, one of which, is expected to finish either first or second before the bowl games begin.
Consequently, unless Texas Tech defeats Oklahoma on Nov. 22, to secure 11-0 with only Baylor left on their regular season schedule, the Big 12 South will become a three-way tie, and the team with the highest BCS ranking will represent the Big 12 South in the conference championship game. Although neither the Crimson Tide nor the Gators have an easy route to the SEC Championship Game (Florida still has No. 25 South Carolina at home and No. 19 Florida State on the road; Alabama will play Auburn in its final game of the season), the implications of this game, if the two teams win, will be immense.
USC left out to dry
With staggering defensive numbers, arguably one of the most talented rosters in the country, one loss to an unranked opponent and their position atop a weak conference, USC’s numbers do not add up well for the BCS Championship Game.
Though the sixth-ranked Trojans have only allowed an astounding 6.7 points per game, the best since the 1986 Sooners allowed 6.6 points per game, and while maintaining an average 31-point margin-of-victory this year, they are easily the long shots to slip into the BCS title game. Even if they blowout their three remaining Pacific-10 Conference opponents who are a combined 8-20 this season, the Trojans are desperate for upsets during the final weeks of the season. Southern Cal head coach Pete Carroll campaigned on his own last Tuesday during a weekly meeting with reporters.
“I think [the BCS system] stinks,” Carroll said in his press conference. “I don’t understand how the thing works. I don’t really know.”
Still, most college football experts agree the Trojans should be near the bottom of the top-ranked, one-loss teams vying for a chance to play for the national championship. Following Carroll’s complaints, USC did not help matters by needing a touchdown with less than three minutes left in the game to pull away in a 17-3 win over California. Unless Missouri wins the Big 12 Championship game or the eventual SEC Champion loses one of its final regular season games, the Trojans will likely be outside, looking in, near the end of this season. That is, if, they even win the PAC-10. Oregon State, who upset the Trojans earlier this year, is currently tied with the Trojans atop the conference, and, if USC wins, they will need a Beaver loss to claim yet another PAC-10 title.
Boise State’s BCS return?
The Cinderella team from two years ago is back in a similar fashion to catwalk into a BCS game. After finishing their 13-0 2006 season with one of the most memorable college football finishes of all-time (a 43-42 win in overtime over the Oklahoma Sooners in the Fiesta Bowl), the 9-0 Broncos are three relatively easy wins away from another BCS game. Some, like ESPN’s Mark Schlabach, are pondering a rematch between Oklahoma and Boise State in this season’s Fiesta Bowl.
“We’ve got a long way to go,’’ Boise State head coach Chris Peterson told The Associated Press. “We’ve just got to get a lot better ourselves before we worry about any of that stuff.”
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