Louisiana State, allegedly the best two-loss team in the country, will get the chance to be the best team in the country.The Tigers will play one-loss Ohio State in the Jan. 7 Bowl Championship Series title game in New Orleans, according to projections by the BCS Guru. The official BCS standings will be released Sunday afternoon.
So why not Virginia Tech, Georgia, Oklahoma or USC, the other two-loss teams? Why will LSU get the nod over these teams?
Here's what the Guru says regarding each of those teams:
Virginia Tech: "Virginia Tech got blown out by LSU early in the season and was already behind LSU in the Harris poll and barely in front in the coaches poll as of last week. That's an easy fix for voters."
Georgia: "The bottom line is the voters will rearrange their ballot because LSU routed Virginia Tech and beat Tennessee with a backup quarterback after the Volunteers blew out Georgia earlier in the season. Those reasons will put LSU back on top."
Oklahoma: "As for Oklahoma, the computers pretty much did the trick, and also its weak loss to a 6-6 Colorado team really doomed its chances."
USC: "USC's problem is that it had the worst loss among two-loss teams — to Stanford. And USC is being hurt big-time by the computers because its three nonconference opponents — Nebraska, Notre Dame and Idaho — all turned out to suck big-time."
Hawaii is still playing and the Guru will be updating his projections. As he updates, so will the Wiz, so check either the Guru's site or this post later in evening/morning.
Update: Hawaii, behind a Heisman-like performance from Colt Brennan (42 of 50 for 442 yards, five touchdowns and no interceptions) rallied from a 21-0 deficit to stun Washington, 35-28. The victory should earn Hawaii a berth to a BCS bowl.
Here are the Guru's BCS bowl projections:
Rose: USC vs. Illinois
Sugar: Georgia vs. Hawaii
Fiesta: Oklahoma vs. West Virginia
Orange: Virginia Tech vs. Kansas
If this is how the BCS bowls break down, at least two teams and a conference are going to be ticked off.
The first team is Missouri, which was No. 1 in the BCS entering the final week, yet is likely to be passed over in favor of Kansas, a team it defeated a week ago. But a loss to Oklahoma has likely knocked the two-loss Tigers out of the BCS picture.
And Arizona State, with losses to Oregon and USC, is also in danger of being left off the BCS bandwagon. Compare the Sun Devils' two losses to LSU's two losses: Arizona State lost at Oregon (8-4), which at one point was No. 2 in the BCS, and at home to Rose Bowl-bound USC (10-2). LSU lost at Kentucky (7-5) and at home to Arkansas (8-4), yet will be playing for the national title. Go figure.
The Pacific 10 has reason to be upset. In 2001, Oregon (10-1) was passed over for the BCS title game in favor of Nebraska, which failed to win its division in the Big 12. The Cornhuskers were pounded by Miami, 37-14, in the BCS title game and the Ducks defeated Colorado, 38-16, in the Fiesta. The Buffaloes, champions of the Big 12, defeated Nebraska, 62-36, to win the Big 12 North.
In 2005 after lobbying from Mack Brown, Texas edged its way into the Rose Bowl ahead of California. The Pac-10 was not happy about this and now it appears the conference will once again be shortchanged by the BCS.
7 comments:
You can play that Tennessee & UGA card all you want....but UGA beat UK & LSU lost to UK. LSU also lost to a 1 dimensional Arkansas team.
UGA is the hottest team in the nation and would destroy Ohio St. Just because Miles cried all week about how UGA would fit in and not LSU, doesn't mean voters should give in!
Wellllll:
After this year, anyone who says their team will DESTROY any other team needs to stop drinking the kool-aid. There are no locks this year.
That being said, I'd rather my Buckeyes play LSU than Georgia or USC. I think LSU's luck is starting to run out. The next team they play won't have Erik Ainge at quarterback.
Was it me or did it seem like the refs were trying to GIVE the game back to West Virginia last night.
Great season, huh?
Slinging the "Brown Campaigned for the Rose Bowl" myth? What happened?
Texas Tech de-cleated a pretend Cal team and Texas beat Michigan, which was a good game. Not as good the following year's Rose Bowl but still a good bowl game.
How many points would Michigan hung on Cal's No Mas D? 60? 70?
ooThat's weak. A bowl game, especially a disappointing bowl game, is no measure of a team's ability. You really think Cal was excited to be playing Tech that year? Yeah, probably about as excited as K-State was to go from possible national title game to Alamo Bowl in 15 minutes.
Mack whined, and he won. Such is the BCS.
please tell me there's at least some chance that we can get a UGA/USC rose bowl. Would basically serve at the AP title game
What a mess this year is. I'm speechless.
LSU's regular season schedule was the most difficult that any college team has played, ever. Consider this four week sequence: Florida, Kentucky, Alabama, and Auburn. The Florida game was Armageddon. LSU or any team would have been greatly challenged by any old mediocre team on the next weekend. (Such post-Armageddon upsets are legendary: in 1978 USC beat Alabama 24-14 and the next week lost to 5-5 Arizona 3-27) LSU faced a Kentucky team at the top of its form, and that form was top-ten quality. LSU and Kentucky tied. We say LSU lost only because a bunch of tv producers have learned that there is a mega-fortune in endless overtime.
The importance of schedule is greatly overlooked in rating teams. SEC teams have the toughest schedules because all of them play a conference-heavy schedule and because the SEC has the largest number of higly competitive teams. LSU should be number one because of their schedule. Ohio State has a relatively weak schedule by comparison. Missour and West Virginia have laughably weak schedules. The BSC dodged a bullet when both were "upset" last night.
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