Saturday, November 06, 2010

CFB Hangover: TCU Loves LSU

This is what I just tweeted:

"Bama losing = best-case BCS scenario for TCU/Boise. If/when Auburn loses to Bama, AUB limps into SECCG w/ no BCS mandate"

Let's unpack that:

There was a fairly solid conventional wisdom that a 1-loss defending national champ Alabama -- beating Top 10 LSU and unbeaten Auburn, then winning the SEC Championship -- would get into the BCS title game ahead of TCU or Boise.

Now that conventional wisdom has been obliterated, because there won't BE a 1-loss Alabama.

Consider this: Because it beat LSU head-to-head, Auburn clinches its spot in the SEC title game by beating Georgia next weekend.

What happens when Auburn then LOSES to non-factor Alabama to finish the regular season? They limp into an SEC title game that suddenly has zero juice.

1-loss Auburn -- directly coming off a loss to 2-loss Alabama, no less -- doesn't have nearly the presumptive mandate that 1-loss Alabama would. In fact, I would argue they have no mandate.

Instead, presuming Oregon wins out -- and TCU and Boise both win out -- I think you can put Oregon and TCU into the national-title game, with 1-loss SEC champ Auburn on the outside.

(Let's pause to appreciate that TCU went on the road and annihilated Utah -- a team ranked in the Top 5. Boise's throttling in Boise of unranked Hawaii pales in comparison. TCU is awesome.)

I, for one, would love to see Oregon's offense against TCU's defense. That feels like a championship-worthy event.

Meanwhile, the biggest LSU fans in the world should be TCU and Boise State fans. Because barring Auburn running the table*, LSU just cost the SEC its spot in the national-title game...

(* - If Auburn runs the table, they would meet Oregon for the national title, and TCU and Boise would get shut out.)

My first-pass BlogPoll ballot Top 5 for this week: (1) TCU, (2) Oregon, (3) Boise, (4) Auburn, (5) LSU.

-- D.S.

No comments: