At this point, y'all know the drill...
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbt12.htm
Here are the numbers for the SEC:
Alabama 105.32 Florida 95.10 Texas A&M 90.72 South Carolina 89.51 LSU 86.94
Mississippi State 80.96 Georgia 80.89 Mississippi 78.12 Tennessee 74.24 Missouri 73.26 Arkansas 72.87 Vanderbilt 70.01 Auburn 67.96 Kentucky 63.20
Giving us the following projected season:
SEC EAST
* - Florida 8-0
South Carolina 6-2
Georgia 6-2
Tennessee 3-5
Vanderbilt 3-5
Missouri 1-7
Kentucky 0-8
SEC WEST
* - Alabama 8-0
LSU 6-2
Texas A&M 5-3
Mississippi State 5-3
Ole Miss 3-5
Arkansas 2-6
Auburn 0-8
SEC CHAMPIONSHIP: Alabama (-10) over Florida
Let's see how the other conferences panned out, show we?
ACC CHAMPION: Florida State (11-2; the model has returned to sanity regarding the UF/FSU game, knocking the Seminoles out of the title conversation in even the most 2007 of scenarios)
BIG EAST CHAMPION: Rutgers (12-0, although that will be meaningless with only one ranked team on their schedule)
BG TEN CHAMPION: Michigan (11-2, beating then 9-3 Wisconsin; both beat Ohio State, knocking the Buckeyes out of the Terry Bowden Championship race)
BIG 12 CHAMPION: Kansas State (12-0; if y'all were thinking Bama had any margin of error in the title chase, well...)
PAC 12 CHAMPION: Oregon (13-0, beating USC twice; Oregon will likely end the season with 5 wins over ranked teams, and they're #4 in the BCS standings despite not having played the meat of their schedule yet. If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm saying there's gonna be some piiiiiiiiiised off football fans in Manhattan, KS come December)
NON-AQ TEAMS: Notre Dame (11-1, Roll Sooners); Northern Illinois (12-1 MAC Champions, knocking off previously undefeated potential BCS buster Ohio); Boise State (11-1, likely on the outside looking in thanks to SOS)
And now the BCS!
BCS CHAMPIONSHIP: BCS #1 vs BCS #2
FIESTA BOWL: Big 12 champ vs. At-large #1
SUGAR BOWL: SEC champ vs. At-large #2
ORANGE BOWL: ACC champ vs. At-large #3
ROSE BOWL: Big 10 champ vs. Pac 12 champ
To project from here, we also have to project 1) how the BCS rankings will end up, and 2) how the various bowl committees will decide to slice up the pie. For the first part, I'm assuming Alabama's going to stay #1 after beating Mississippi State, LSU, and Florida, and that Oregon will leapfrog Kansas State due to a backloaded schedule.
BCS CHAMPIONSHIP: Alabama vs Oregon
FIESTA BOWL: Kansas State vs. At-large #1
SUGAR BOWL: (Replacement #1) vs. At-large #2
ORANGE BOWL: Florida State vs. At-large #3
ROSE BOWL: Michigan vs. (Replacement #2)
Now we get to the part where football performance yields to the almighty dollar. Rutgers and Notre Dame have to get BCS bids, but the other three will be based on expected revenue as much as (if not more than) football performance. The Sugar Bowl goes first, and gets a tough choice; I imagine they'll take Florida for the conference tie-in. Now the remainder of the SEC is out. The Rose Bowl is up next, probably taking Oklahoma's rabid fan base over a Michigan/Notre Dame rematch. Next up, the Fiesta Bowl, and the Irish's national fan base (and mass of TV eyeballs) is too much to pass up. Now the Sugar Bowl is in a bind; they're out of SEC and Big-12 teams, and they're down to 12-0 Rutgers, 10-2 Oregon State, 11-1 Boise State, 11-1 Lousiville, 10-2 Clemson, 9-4 USC, and 11-1 Northern Illinois. None of these strike me as "national brands" (except the 4-loss Trojans), and I imagine Rutgers will be the highest BCS ranked team left, so the Scarlet Knights it is. The Orange Bowl, giddy at the idea of not being the ACC/Big East "who's the worst AQ conference" Bowl again, takes the best team available, Oregon State.
BCS CHAMPIONSHIP: Alabama (-11) over Oregon
FIESTA BOWL: Notre Dame (-1) over Kansas State
SUGAR BOWL: Florida (-15) over Rutgers
ORANGE BOWL: Florida State (-4) over Oregon State
ROSE BOWL: Oklahoma (-12) over Michigan
What do you think? Crazy? Plausible? Deluded homerism? All of the above?
Poll
Roscoe, you totally snubbed...
Kansas State (2 votes)
Notre Dame (0 votes)
LSU (0 votes)
USC (0 votes)
Mississippi State (2 votes)
Texas Tech (1 vote)
Louisville (0 votes)
Stanford (0 votes)
Clemson (0 votes)
West Virginia (0 votes)
Boise State (0 votes)
Ohio (1 vote)
Wisconsin (0 votes)
Nope, you nailed it. (14 votes)
None of the above (please specify) (1 vote)
21 total votes


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