In my post on the BCS pecking order last weekend, LSU fan Matt Wiser made an excellent, horrifying point that I hadn’t thought of. There is actually a very real possibility of a Florida-Alabama BCS championship game — an all-SEC matchup for all the marbles, causing Hitler and I to protest: “HOW THE F*** DO WE KNOW THEY’RE SO GOOD IF THEY ONLY EVER PLAY EACH OTHER?!” 🙂
The way this happens is not for the Gators and Tide to both go undefeated, reach the SEC title game ranked #1 and #2, play a thriller at the Georgia Dome, and hope the voters set up a January rematch. That won’t happen. So long as there’s another undefeated or one-loss team from a BCS conference available (possibly other than Virginia Tech, if Alabama is the one that loses in Atlanta; see Stewart Mandel on that topic), the voters will find somebody to place ahead of the SEC runner-up. We learned in 2006 that the voters don’t like rematches, and even the mystique and aura of the SEC won’t be enough to change that, methinks.
But there’s another scenario — one also noted by SI.com’s Andy Staples in his most recent Power Rankings — that could very easily produce an all-SEC matchup for the mythical national championship. It goes like this:
Right now, there are three SEC West teams in serious contention for the division title: Alabama (3-0 in conference play), LSU (3-1), and Auburn (3-1). The Battle of the Tigers (LSU vs. Auburn) is on October 24, i.e. a week from Saturday, at LSU. The Saban Bowl (Alabama vs. LSU) is on November 7, at Alabama. The Iron Bowl (Alabama vs. Auburn) is on November 27, at Auburn.
Let’s assume that LSU beats Auburn, thus turning the SEC West into a two-team race between the Bayou Bengals and the Fighting Sabans. (This scenario actually also works if Auburn beats LSU — just substitute “Auburn” for “LSU” throughout the remainder of this post — but it’s not quite as likely because of timing issues.)
Let’s further assume that LSU proceeds to upset Alabama. I know this goes against the current conventional wisdom that OMG FLORIDA AND ALABAMA CANNOT BE STOPPED BY ANYONE, EVER!!!!, but as we should all know by now, conventional wisdom in college football isn’t worth squat, and upsets happen, usually when we’re least expecting them. So: LSU beats Auburn and Alabama. The Tigers and Tide win out otherwise. LSU (11-1 overall, 7-1 in conference play) is your SEC West champion, by virtue of the head-to-head tiebreaker with the Crimson Tide (also 11-1, 7-1).
Meanwhile, Alabama would drop in the polls because of its loss to LSU — but not too far. After all, the Tide would still only have one loss. And if Virginia Tech is still a one-loss team, the Hokies’ poll placement (currently #4) could serve as a de facto “floor” for Alabama, at least with some voters, due to the Tide’s head-to-head win over the Hokies on opening weekend. So Alabama would remain very much in BCS contention despite the early-November loss to LSU.
But LSU, not Alabama, would go the SEC title game. Now, let’s just assume the Tigers lose to Florida (again) in that matchup. Let’s also assume that Texas, Kansas, Iowa, and tonight’s USF-Cincinnati winner — all currently unbeaten — each lose at least one game before season’s end. So, heading into bowl season, the only remaining undefeated team (other than perhaps Boise State and/or TCU) is undisputed #1 Florida. That leaves us with a battle for the #2 spot in the BCS standings between a bunch of one-loss teams…
…including Alabama, which, crucially, would not have played Florida in this scenario, so a potential Florida-Alabama BCS title game would NOT be a rematch. And with its one loss coming on November 7, Alabama would have four weeks and three games, including the Iron Bowl, to climb up the polls. (This is why Auburn beating LSU and Alabama is less likely to produce the result I’m about to describe than LSU beating Auburn and Alabama.)
Now, you tell me: which one-loss team gets into the BCS title game ahead of Alabama? Surely not Virginia Tech, which lost to Bama head-to-head. (See: LSU/VaTech, 2007 BCS debate.) Ohio State? Not with the memories of 2006-07 and 2007-08 fresh in the voters’ minds. Texas? Maybe, if they manage to win the Big 12 title despite their one loss, but otherwise, they’re a non-division-champion just like Alabama, and with a weaker resumé. USC? Perhaps, but the Trojans’ one loss was to a Washington team that will be lucky to finish 6-6, whereas Alabama’s one loss in this scenario is to SEC runner-up LSU (11-2), probably still a Top 10 team even after losing to Florida. As for quality wins, well, yeah, USC would have beaten Ohio State, Oregon, Notre Dame, etc. But we all know the SEC IS A WARTM, and Alabama did beat Virginia Tech (a rare example of quality non-conference scheduling by an SEC team), so the Tide probably come out ahead of the Trojans in that category too, in the voters’ minds at least.
The biggest albatross around Alabama’s neck would be that they, like Nebraska in 2001, “didn’t even win their division.” But while I think that’s a major obstacle in most scenarios, I could easily see the voters ignoring it in this case, and giving us the “dream matchup” everyone east of Mississippi and south of the Mason-Dixon line would be dying to see. Indeed, if events transpire as I’ve described in the SEC, and all the other BCS unbeatens lose, a one-loss Big 12 champion, or perhaps a one-loss USC, might be the only teams with a realistic chance of stopping it (and, as noted above, I’m not sure even they could).
If the various unbeatens, and perhaps the Trojans, lose between now and season’s end, and the SEC schedule plays out as I’ve described it… watch out. The real SEC championship game might not be played in Atlanta in December. It might be played in Pasadena in January.
UPDATE: I realized belatedly that my original fake logo was wrong — because, of course, the Rose Bowl Game is separate and distinct from the BCS “National Championship” Game played at the Rose Bowl a week later — so I changed the logo at the top of the post. Here’s the original:
I wonder how bad an all SEC championship game would suffer in the ratings since, well, alot of people outside the SEC might not bother to even watch it. I might not watch it out of protest for the bullshit that is the SEC bias and their lack of semi-decent scheduling. I imagine i’m not the only person who would think that way.
I’d watch it because it would be an awesome game.
But I’d tweet indignantly while doing so! 🙂
Then you are part of the problem, feeding the sEcSPN media juggernaut!
True enough. But I’d still watch. 🙂 And I’d wager many others would, too. In fact, I think Florida-Alabama would probably get very big ratings. Certainly bigger than, say, Florida-Boise State or Florida-TCU or Florida-Oregon or Florida-Cincinnati or Florida-South Florida, no matter how deserving, in various different scenarios, those teams might be.
Now… Florida-USC… that would get some ratings. 🙂
The interesting thing about 1-loss Alabama making the championship is that their circumstances are a great illustration of the advantages of scheduling cupcakes for SEC teams. Florida’s non-conference cupcakes are more apparent than Alabama’s in large part because the SEC East is also weak this year, leaving Florida with an overall weak schedule.
But consider: among their four non-conference games, both Florida and Alabama play one team that should be pretty good most years (Alabama: Virginia Tech, Florida: Florida State). Both play a cupcake from the Sun Belt (Alabama: North Texas, Florida: Troy). Both play a cupcake that should be D-IA (Alabama: Tennessee-Chattanooga, Florida: Charleston Southern). Both play cupcake Florida International.
However, because Florida happens to get LSU as a top 10 opponent, one-time darling Ole Miss, and likely Top 25 opponent Auburn – plus the benefit of Va Tech having a pretty good year – they suddenly look quite credible, and surely in the scenario Brendan paints everyone this side of David K. will be quite pleased to see one-loss Alabama in the BCS Championship game.
Alabama’s cupcakery is really quite on a par with Florida’s. It just works so much better when the SEC competition is somewhat tougher, which is an outcome you can’t really blame on Florida.
Sorry – should that third paragraph should obviously begin “because ALABAMA happens to get LSU…”
I don’t care who Florida faces (outside of an SEC opponent) in the championship as long as they got trounced.
The “tough” schedule issues continue to work in the SEC’s favor and against the Pac-10. For example, the Pac-10…with only 10 teams plays a full schedule of games…ie. 9 games, while the SEC with 12 teams plays only 8 conference games, meaning of course that not only does the SEC play fewer conference games than Pac10 teams but they necessarily miss playing 3 of their conference teams each year. Instead, they all get to play 4 non-conference games and as noted by others, usually against very inferior opponents.
The additional conference game also hurts USC’s computer rankings since that means that there are many additional losses automatically spread out among USC opponents compared with a situation when there would only be 8 conference games played
Moreover, one fact that is not usually mentioned is the Notre Dame factor for Pac-10 schools. Notre Dame usually plays a number of Pac-10 Schools each year. This year it is USC, Stanford, Washington, and Washington State. Thus, essentially that makes ND almost a 1/2 conference game for the Pac-10 teams that play ND. Why is that important…because that means that whether or not ND wins or a Pac-10 teams wins… an opponent of USC will still get an additional loss even from this so-called non-conference game. Whereas if the Pac-10 teams were to play someone other than ND and win…that would help USC’s computer rankings…likewise if ND would beat teams other than Pac-10 teams that would also help USC’s computer rankings…but by playing so many Pac-10 teams the ND games definitively result in additional losses by USC opponents and also causing the USC computer ranking to go down.