Friend of the blog (and studly political blogger himself) Ed Kilgore asked me an interesting question:
BCS rules require a Top 14 finish for any non-conference-champion to be eligible for a BCS bowl.Looking at the remaining SEC games (and the championship), there’s a non-trivial chance that no SEC team other than Bama will finish with fewer than 3 losses. Is it possible Bama will go to the championship game yet the SEC will be shut out of the Sugar Bowl?
Actually, yeah, there’s a decent possibility of that happening if the Tide runs the regular season table. Take a look at the current SEC standings. There are five teams with one or two losses: Missouri and South Carolina in the East, and Auburn, LSU and Texas A&M in the West. LSU and TAMU will face off; so will Missouri and TAMU. LSU and Auburn have to face Alabama. Auburn also plays Georgia. South Carolina may not have an extremely tough conference game left on its schedule, but it does have the season finale with Clemson.
Then, one of the East squads faces ‘Bama in the SECCG.
To me, if Alabama goes 12-0, it looks like Auburn and whichever of Missouri and South Carolina doesn’t play in Atlanta have the best chances of avoiding that third loss. Would that be enough to avoid missing out on finishing ranked highly enough? What do you guys think?
Get The Picture 
This was rolling through my mind already concerning next weekend. Given how big of a pay day the SEC could miss out on if only Alabama gets into the BCS, I have to think the $live will hand select the referees for next week on the Plains. And said referees will be given strict orders to preserve an Auburn win at all costs since if Auburn beats UTK, then us, but loses the Iron Bowl, they are a near lock for the BCS.
Get ready next week boys, we are gonna have to win 11 vs. 17. Hopefully Gurley will be back to early season form and will rush for 395 yards, we avoid ST miscues and the D plays a halfway decent game and it won’t matter what $live and his band of dicks want.
Isn’t it sad we have to project like this?
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This ^^^^ in a major way. $live wants the 2 Bc$ teams and the SEC members want the $. We better be ready for Penn Wagers’ crew to show up on the Plains and get ready for a number of PWG flags. I believe we can beat the Tigers mainly because Nick Marshall isn’t $Cam Newton.
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SEC office and refs=Bunch of crooks. Where are the Feds? This type of thing is waaaay worse than bank robbery and counterfeiting because a whole lot more money is involved. It is a form of fraud yet the authorities do nothing. “It’s just a football game.” Morons.
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Watch for Murray and Gurley to somehow big flagged and ejected for targeting.
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I sure hope you are right.
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In order to maintain my shtick, boss, I really would like to defer any comment for a couple or three weeks.
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If Auburn splits the UGA and Bama games then they would be in a good position for the Sugar Bowl since they wouldn’t have a possibility for a 3rd loss (assuming they win at Tennessee tomorrow) as Bama would play in the SEC title game.
Personally I’m hopeful Auburn drops both of those games obviously.
I don’t see A&M winning in Baton Rouge nor do I see LSU winning tomorrow at Bama so those teams are likely out of the mix.
I don’t see anyone from the East finishing with less than 3 losses unless Mizzou drops 1 game down the stretch and doesnt win the East. They would be sitting at 10-2 and not playing Bama in the dome. I think they’d be top 14, but would the Sugar take them?
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Mizzou drops to OM and A&M. We beat Bama and then beat FSU in the sugar. Baylor over OSU in BCS.
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Nightmare scenario for the SEC.
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But a great scenario for us (though Jameis and FSU’s WRs vs our secondary isn’t a matchup I see us winning, even if we did somehow beat a Bama team that lost to LSU or Auburn to get there.)
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I think South Carolina has the inside track. They’ve never been so their fan base would eat it up, and I don’t believe they’ll lose to Clemson until I see it (like Oregon beating Stanford again). They are already #12, and a bump from beating Clemson would give the Sugar Bowl enough cover to pick them over a Missouri squad with only two losses. Anything could happen like Andrew’s apocalyptic scenario, but I think this is more likely.
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Agree but it’s going to be hard to take … darn injuries and special teams
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I think this made my head hurt
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A nine game conference schedule is nuts if you ask me.
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Sadly, with a low-rent like Slime at the top, and the SEC getting duped into any conceivable way to lose a spot in it’s own major bowl spot, this is a possibility. Of course it couldn’t be done without the compliance of SEC officials but given that group’s demise since they fell under the leadership of people associated with non-football, GT type people. The idea of no SEC team in the Sugar Bowl is beyond comprehension but high level officials selling their integrity for money is very prevalent these days. I think the SEC will have a team ranked that high but then these are the same voters that had OU in the Top 10, and Notre Dame in the Top 20 this week.
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What do I think? I think losing to f#@*ing vandy is costing us more every day.
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You got that right. I awake in the mornings and say to myself, “Did that happen, Did Vandy beat us….Is that possible that the Greek Tragedy of CF beat US! Nahh just a bad dream.
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“I awake in the mornings and say to myself,”
Dreamweavers identify the primary indicator signaling initial daily interference within the system 🙂
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Yeah, the Vandy loss is the only one that will take a long time to get over. It’s not just the impact of losing: it’s that we all spent days arguing about which disaster cost us the game (injuries, ST, refs, play-calling), which probably means all of them had to happen to keep us from winning.
BTW, thanks for the shout-out, Senator, and for forwarding (and answering) my question.
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Hard to believe this is possible only one year removed from the SEC having SIX teams with two or fewer losses in the final pre-bowl BCS standings. Although there are no 3-loss teams from any conference currently in the top 25, there is still a lot of football left. I would venture to guess that a 3-loss SEC team will sneak into that final top 14. A 3-loss Oregon State finished #13 last year. Baylor and Oklahoma were each in the top 14 with three losses in 2011. So it’s not terribly out of the realm of possibility.
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Good research. And you’re right, it’s not out of the realm of possibility, but I raised this because I didn’t hear anyone discussing a one-BCS year as within the realm of possibility. That’s probably because we assume, quite rightly, that second- and third-tier SEC teams are superior to first-tier teams from the Great Beyond.
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Some true conspiracy nuts here. Watch out for the black helicopters, fellas.
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Will do. And when there are multiple questionable penalties called in Auburn’s favor next week at critical moments in the game, maybe you will see what everybody else already does. Maybe they will find a way to eject a player for targeting on every series!?!?!?
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I avoid all the regular season silliness about officials conspiring, just chalk it up to incompetence, but I am pretty confident an extra BCS spot drives a lot of bonuses in the SEC office, and who knows how far the effect of that reaches? Incremental, double digit millions is serious cash for some people and makes them get all goofy with things they might do.
There is always the shallow, no integrity ref who carries a grudge, but I don’t subscribe to conspiracies during the regular season. That said, I would like to see standardization by having one national group officiating all CFB games. Just look how the booth officials in Baylor/OU interpreted targeting versus the Nashville crew on Drew’s hit two weeks ago. Both were legal hits to me, but we lost our best pass rusher early in the game due to that incompetent fool.
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If the SEC office is paying bonuses for an extra BCS game slot, then someone should be shot and the contracts bearing such language immediately shredded. It’s a ridiculous thing to attach to incentives, mainly because no one in the SEC, including the contracted officials, really has any control over the variables governing selection procedures.
I know the whole risk-reward theory as a check on risky behavior went out the door with Wall Street, but the only thing that could derail the SEC as a money-making brand would be a competitive scandal.
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I doubt that there is language in any document in Birmingham that says that SEC minions get bonuses for such and such number of teams in bowls and which games but the reality remains that if the SEC gets a whole lot of dough, there will be more money to spread around. And it will get spread if they have it. So Mac’s point is well taken, IMHO.
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It’s like AFDB (Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie) origami but only better for those of us who like to DIY*
http://zapatopi.net/afdb/build.html
*”BEWARE OF COMMERCIAL AFDBS: Since you should trust no one, always construct your AFDB yourself to avoid the risk of subversion and mental enslavement. Sometimes, AFDBs will be sold on places like eBay. Do not purchase these pre-made AFDBs, even if the seller seems trustworthy. They may contain backdoors, pinholes, integrated psychotronic circuitry or other methods that actually promote mind control.”
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You do know that Steve Shaw and Mike Slive watch the games from a command center in B’Ham and are wired real time through the replay booth into the headsets of the officials don’t you?
Don’t need no stinkin’ Tin foil !
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Pre-whining. Get a life.
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Bookmark this post and pull it out in time for the next SEC meeting when all the chatter about a nine-game schedule starts.
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Which comes first: 9 game regular season or 8 team playoff?
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I could really care less if the SEC doesn’t get a team to New Orleans unless it would be UGA with an SEC CG win. What happens to these other teams interests me not. This strange concept of the doing well is great for everyone has about run its course.
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“South Carolina may not have an extremely tough conference game left on its schedule”
Senator, how much pleasure did you get out of typing those words?
Go Gata!
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Quite a bit, actually.
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