Ohio St. Vault Up

The folks that run the BCS are breathing a huge sign of relief this weekend. Several nightmare scenarios could have occurred but now they are free and clear of almost all the major problems.

As both Alabama and Florida won convincingly on Saturday, there will be no argument from anyone that whichever one wins the SEC championship next week deserves to go to the National Title Game. On the other side, both Texas and Oklahoma won so Texas Tech is kept out of the Big 12 Championship. There might be some quibbling over the fact that Oklahoma won the Big 12 South title due to a higher BCS ranking, despite the fact that Texas won the head-to-head match-up, but that’s the way the tie-breakers went. I don’t think anyone is going to dispute Oklahoma as an unworthy title contender.

Also helping the BCS folks is the fact that Oregon St. lost the Civil War to Oregon. This means that USC will win the Pac-10 title and a berth in the Rose Bowl if they beat UCLA this weekend. It also means that the BCS would have another conference champion to turn to if Oklahoma gets upset by Missouri on Saturday. Granted, things look like they would go for Texas if Oklahoma lost, but there is an outside chance that the voters would vault USC up just to make sure that the National Championship is between two conference champions. But I think Oklahoma will win and this will all be a moot point.

As such, my latest projections for the BCS bowls are as follows:

National Title: Florida vs. Oklahoma
Rose: Penn St. vs. USC
Fiesta: Texas vs. Ohio St.
Sugar: Alabama vs. Utah
Orange: Cincinnati vs. Virginia Tech/BC

There is an outside possibility that if Virginia Tech wins the ACC, the Sugar Bowl might step on the Orange Bowl’s toes and invite Virginia Tech to face off against Alabama. That would then force the Orange Bowl to take Cincinnati and Utah (which might not be a bad game actually). I should also note that while Boise St., TCU, and Ball St. are in the top 12 of the BCS rankings, the BCS is only required to give an automatic berth to one non-BCS school and Utah has the highest ranking (#6) of the four. Given the options, I believe that the Fiesta Bowl will opt for the proven traveler in Ohio St. over the other three that I have mentioned (even though Boise St. (#9) is ranked ahead of them (#10)). Texas Tech (#7) is not BCS bowl eligible because 2 teams from the Big 12 have already been taken.