BCS Predictions

With only two weeks left in the college football regular season, its time to start looking at the BCS standings, especially since things got a lot clearer this week.

First, the likely conference champs:

PAC 10 – USC. UCLA’s loss exposed their great weakness. They and Cal will try hard, but USC is too good to get taken down by either team.

Big 12 – Texas. Texas will meet Colorado in the title game and squash them appropriately, much to the chagrin of my uncle Chuck.

Big 10 – Penn St. Penn St. has a bye and then Michigan St. With as badly as Michigan St. is reeling and with two weeks to prepare, Penn St. should have no trouble at all in this game.

Big East – West Virginia. West Virginia still has its big showdown game with the University of South Florida, but I think West Virginia is the more talented team and will probably win out.

ACC – Miami. Miami now has the inside track to the ACC Coastal title and would probably play Florida St. in the championship game. Miami is better and will probably win out.

SEC – Georgia. Georgia has the inside track to the SEC East title. Alabama has to go through LSU and Auburn, both of which are still contenders for the SEC West title. I expect Alabama to lose at least one game and have LSU go to the title game. With Georgia’s quarterback back, they should win the SEC and advance to the Sugar Bowl.

Now to the bowl selections. The Rose Bowl is the national championship this year with the Orange, Fiesta, and Sugar picking after it in that order.

Rose Bowl – USC vs. Texas. These will probably be the only teams remaining undefeated when the season ends, so the game will be an easy selection.

Orange Bowl – Miami vs. Penn St. The Orange Bowl automatically gets the ACC Champion and will almost certainly honor that with the hometown Hurricanes winning the ACC. The Fiesta Bowl will likely have snatched Notre Dame up by this point, so the Big 10 Champions will make for a nice alternative.

Fiesta Bowl – Notre Dame vs. Ohio St. (Oregon/Alabama?). This is where it gets a little fuzzy. The Fiesta Bowl gets the first pick after the Rose Bowl to replace Big 12 Champ Texas. With this they will take Notre Dame who will be available assuming they win their last two games and the strength of schedule holds to keep them in the top 12 of the BCS standings. If Ohio St. beats Northwestern and Michigan, the Fiesta Bowl will jump at the chance to take them, but that’s a big if. Oregon could win the rest of its games and finish 10-1, a reasonable second choice, although one that won’t generate as much money as Ohio St. Also possible is if Alabama has only 1 loss but misses the SEC title game, they might get the nod over Oregon. Whatever the Fiesta Bowl thinks will make it the most money. But Ohio State and Notre Dame would be their first choices I think.

Sugar Bowl – Georgia vs. West Virginia. The Sugar Bowl gets the bad luck of drawing last this year and, as a result, gets stuck with the Big East champion to face off against its automatic SEC champion berth.

If these hold out, every game should be a good one, except for the Sugar Bowl, which will turn out to be a complete slaughter and a yawner of a game.