BCS Mess

Having looked at the pro playoffs last time, let's look at the BCS Bowl bids.

Assuming LSU beats Georgia in the SEC Championship game, the National Title game will be a rematch of LSU and Alabama (in the Superdome no less). Not great, but no one else has established themselves to supplant Alabama. Oklahoma St. came close and if they beat Oklahoma at Oklahoma thus winning the Big 12 Championship, there is an outside chance they could get voted in over Alabama. But I'm not confident that Oklahoma St. will beat Oklahoma so it may be moot.

The Rose Bowl will be Big 10 vs. Pac 12 as normal. In the Big 10 we have a rematch of the great Wisconsin-Michigan St. game from earlier in the year. I would favor Wisconsin but they have shown a tendency to choke in big game situations. The Pac 12 championship game will be Oregon vs. UCLA. Oregon goes because they beat Stanford head-to-head and UCLA goes because USC is still banned from bowl games. I fully expect Oregon to slap UCLA silly.

The Big East was won by Louisville this year and they might get picked up by the Orange Bowl. The Orange Bowl ACC berth will go to the winner of Virginia Tech and Clemson. I would give a slight nod to Virginia Tech but this is a pretty even match-up.

As the Big 12 only has ten members now, the Big 12 championship game has been discontinued. But because of the way the season has played out, Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma St. is a de-facto championship game. If Oklahoma St. wins, they win the conference outright. If Oklahoma wins they win the tiebreakers with Oklahoma St. and Kansas St. due to victories in head-to-head match-ups. Whomever wins, they get the automatic bid to the Fiesta Bowl.

That leaves the at-large bids. With Alabama presumably going to the National Championship game, the SEC is excluded from sending any more schools to the BCS bowls. Should Oklahoma St. somehow get in over Alabama, Alabama would take LSU's Sugar Bowl berth. If Georgia knocks off LSU, all hell will break loose as the computers could conceivably put Alabama and Stanford in the National Title game (neither school having won their conference).

But aside from the doomsday scenario, I suspect the at-large bids will go to Stanford, Houston (assuming they defeat Southern Mississippi in the Conference USA title game) and Boise St. Arkansas and USC would be more deserving but USC is under sanction and Arkansas is excluded due to Alabama getting in.

The Sugar Bowl would probably take Stanford to fill the LSU hole and may try to match them against Houston to get a local flavor (many New Orleans residents fled to Houston after Hurricane Katrina) as well as a game that could push 120 combined total points. The Fiesta Bowl would probably be quite happy with Boise St to face off against whichever Oklahoma team wins the Big 12. That would leave the Orange Bowl as ACC vs. Big East.

I'm not 100% sure about the selection order, but these would make the most sense to me as far as selections go. But we shall have to see how the various games go to see what truly happens. Certainly Georgia would love to throw everything into a phenomenal state of chaos by winning the SEC and knocking LSU from the Number 1 spot.