I think Arkansas needed to win this week for "armegeddon" to happen. Even if LSU loses to Georgia, they will make the Championship game. I don't see how this can end without a rematch of LSU and Alabama. How do you see it shaking out differently?

If Georgia defeats LSU in the SEC Title game, who could possibly be considered the number 1 team in the country let alone the number 2? LSU would be a one loss team without a title, same with Alabama who lost to LSU, Meanwhile Georgia would have a title but would have lost to Boise (and South Carolina), Boise lost to 20 Ranked TCU. Then you have the potential Big 12 Champ OSU (or just another 2 loss like OK), A one loss ACC Champion V-Tech (or not), Undefeated and largely untested Houston, Stanford who is still 2 wins against quality teams to be a 1 loss Pac 10 Championship who was beat by oregon who in turn was beat by LSU.

I would think you have to have Houston in the final against a tainted LSU.

BURN BABY BURN

1 Loss boise (who might even be locked out of the BCS with 3 SEC teams in there) beat 2 loss Georgia, who would theoretically have beaten LSU. That, I believe is Armageddon.

1 loss LSU, 1 loss Bama are both much much much better than 1 loss Boise. Cannot put Boise in above either of those. 2 loss Georgia has no chance. BCS has shown they don't care for undefeated teams with terrible schedules so Houston has no chance.

How are they much much better? That is what i don't get. In our hypothetical world Boise beat the SEC Champion ON THE ROAD. Meanwhile you are going to send the runner up to the National title game because boise is supposedly inferior to the SEC? Come on now!

let alone send the runner up and 3rd place SEC teams, to the title game.

You really used the x beat y beat z argument.

If Georgia beats LSU, LSU is still No. 1 in the country. 12-1, wins over 11-1 Alabama, 10-2 Arkansas, 10-2 Pac-12 Champs Oregon, and possibly 9-3 Big East Champs West Virginia. I only emphasize the conference championships because you did, though. In my mind, winning your conference is entirely irrelevant.

Oklahoma State is the clear No. 2, having gone 7-1 against teams with .500 or better record, presuming of course that they beat Oklahoma.

Alabama is #3, Virginia Tech/Stanford are 4 and 5 (order may be flipped), Boise chills at #6 or maybe makes a run at 4/5, Arkansas shows up at #7, Houston chills at #8ish and the rest really don't matter.

"How are they much much better? That is what i don't get. In our hypothetical world Boise beat the SEC Champion ON THE ROAD"

What? Sports are not transitive. Boise beating Georgia, and Georgia beating LSU does not mean Boise is better than LSU. That is ridiculous.

A lot of your arguments seem to be based on conference standings -- specifically that someone who beat the SEC Champs should go above SEC #2, etc. because SEC #2 didn't win its conference.

Never mind, of course, that SEC #2's resume is infinitely better than SEC-Champs-beater. Beating 11-2 Georgia is most certainly not > beating 11-1 Alabama, 10-2 Arkansas, 10-2 Oregon, 9-3 West Virginia, etc.

And finally this is all irrelevant because LSU gon beat dat ass next week

Eden's got this right. Though I would probably put Bama at #2 and Ok State at #3. But I don't think that will matter much since Ok. St. in my mind is going to lose against the Sooners.

"What? Sports are not transitive. Boise beating Georgia, and Georgia beating LSU does not mean Boise is better than LSU. That is ridiculous. "

No actually it isn't at all. How are you going to send a one loss, non champion, LSU to the title game on the pretense that they have prevailed over more quality programs than a 1 loss Boise when a one loss Boise beat the team that beat LSU. Transitive property only reveals a huge flaw here.

"Never mind, of course, that SEC #2's resume is infinitely better than SEC-Champs-beater. Beating 11-2 Georgia is most certainly not > beating 11-1 Alabama, 10-2 Arkansas, 10-2 Oregon, 9-3 West Virginia, etc."

We'll see about that, if Georgia wins that premise will be all wet imo.

"And finally this is all irrelevant because LSU gon beat dat ass next week "

Then only the second team will be controversial, which I agree is not Armageddon i am afraid.

"Eden's got this right. Though I would probably put Bama at #2 and Ok State at #3. But I don't think that will matter much since Ok. St. in my mind is going to lose against the Sooners. "

How do you put OK St. above Boise, they lost to a worse team than Boise did

To further extrapolate, what if #1-#12 were all from the same conference, and #1 won the conference? Should #13 go to the championship game instead?

Because they beat better teams than Boise has.

Also, I maintain that the that one loss LSU is infintely better than 1 loss Boise, regardless of the fact that hypothetically Boise beat the team that beat LSU. Thats like saying that Iowa St. is better than every team that Ok. St. played this year. And you and I both know that is false.

"We'll see about that, if Georgia wins that premise will be all wet imo."

That premise *assumes* Georgia wins (otherwise Georgia isn't 11-2). You still haven't explained how an arbitrary grouping of 12 teams or so is in any way relevant to selecting the two best teams in the country. LSU's resume with a loss still beats the hell out of Boise's.

Boise isn't even going to win the Mountain West Conference. By your conference logic BSU certainly can't go to the title game.

You place no value on quality wins, which is just as important as bad loses. By your reasoning, teams should just pick the easiest schedules possible.

Using your hypothetical results

LSU- 7 or so quality wins, 1 loss
BAMA - 6 or so quality wins, 1 loss
Ok. St. - 5 or 6 quality wins (if they beat OU), 1 bad loss
Boise - 2 quality wins (and I am being generous counting Air Force) , 1 loss

You say Boise > Ok. St or Alabama?

My logic has very little to do with Conference championships, my logic is exposing this complete mess that will be created. Is LSU the best team in the country? quite possibly. But how do you define quality of schedule besides ranking everyone in the SEC high in preseason rankings and calling their conference wins "quality wins." Bama had only one (marginal) quality win over another conference, PSU, Auburn had 0 Quality wins including a loss to clemson, Arkansas has only one quality win outside of the conference, and barely against Texas A&M. Miss St. had 0 quality out of conference games yet was ranked #16(!) in the country when they lossed to Auburn and proceeded to get spanked by the field

You elevate the SEC in preseason polls then call every conference win a "quality win" without any demand that they prove themselves out of conference. Meanwhile Boise schedules a SEC team on the road (our potential SEC champion), and beats them. LSU deserves a stay of execution for scheduling and beating oregon and WVU, but still, where exactly does Alabama get off, and where do you get off calling every SEC West game a quality win? What exactly have they done to deserve that?

Basically, when viewing it from an out of conference view, the currency LSU is basing its invulnerability off of is beating Oregon 9-2 Oregon, a WVU team that has been very beatable in Big East play, and wins over teams who's marque out of conference wins are a 9-3 PSU team and a 6-6 Texas A&M team.

Dut i digress, Armageddon will ensue when it looks as if potentially 6 teams could have a case not only for being in the championship game, but for being number 1.

Even if you take out Tom's counts and try another count, it still stands. I'm with ya in that I don't think LSU has 7 quality wins, Bama 6, etc. I would count quality wins as any team with 8+ wins.

LSU has wins over 10-2 Oregon, 10-2 Arkansas, 11-1 Alabama, and 9-3 West Virginia.
Alabama has wins over 9-3 Penn State and 10-2 Arkansas.
Oklahoma State has wins over Baylor (8-4 or 9-3), Texas (if they beat Baylor they're 8-4), 8-4 Tulsa, 10-2 Kansas State, and 8-4 or 9-3 ULL, plus 9-3 Oklahoma if they do indeed win out.
Boise State has wins over 11-2 Georgia and 8-4 Tulsa.

I think it's clear that LSU and OSU have the two best resumes, and that Bama's wins beat out Boise's wins. Bama's loss is also better than Boise's loss, if we need to look further.

The next level even looks better.

Virginia Tech has wins over 8-4 Virginia, 9-3 or 10-2 Arkansas State and 8-4 Georgia Tech. VT will also get a win over a 9-4 or 10-3 Clemson team. In fact, Virginia Tech might even have an argument over Bama... though at that point it really doesn't matter since they're fighting for #3, not #2.
Stanford has wins over 10-2 Southern Cal and will probably get one on 8-4 Notre Dame.

Stanford gets the advantage due to better loss, Virginia Tech has a better resume in general.

I'd rank 'em:
1. LSU (12-1)
2. Oklahoma State (11-1)
3. Alabama (11-1)
4. Virginia Tech (12-1)
5. Stanford (11-1)
6. Boise State (11-1)

But that argument doesn't place Boise ahead of anyone. They haven't played anyone stronger.

Just because a team like Alabama plays an incredibly easy non-conference schedule doesn't mean they shouldn't get in. Sure Boise played a strong non-conference team in Georgia. But even without the preseason poll if you deny that the likes of Arkansas, Penn State, Florida, Auburn, Tennessee and Ole Miss are vastly superior to Georgia, Air Force, San Diego St, Tulsa and Toledo then you don't have eyes!

I agree that the SEC is very elevated in polls and it helps them. But just by watching you can tell how much better they are than the other conferences. And they have proved it for the last decade in bowl games.

take out number one, 6 teams have a case to be in the game, and no team has a bulletproof case for #1. Lets go with that.

yes play a limited out of conference schedule, get the media (whose loudest voice coincidentally has a TV contract with your league) to continually say that you are in a class of your own, then call every intra conference game the game of the century. Whoever does the best in those intraconference game (and whoever does second best) now has an irrefutable case for the BCS championship game.

Question: Why do they even play the games?

Hey now. I didn't say any of that. But I do think most people will agree with me in say that the SEC is better than the Mountain West. Most will say the SEC is the best conference (something I agree with, but I can see some debate about it) I just don't know how you could ever justify Boise so high in the rankings. But overall, I agree. The BCS is a crapshoot and favors the SEC (though they have yet to prove the media is wrong. Its hard to not rate them so highly when they win the championship and tear up the bowl matchups every year)

yes tear up the bowl matches every year with that resounding .500 mark last year...

Meh. I don't think the BCS favors any one conference. It favors the best-performing conferences with about a year of lag at the most. SEC is going to have 5 9+-win teams out of 12 total and 9 bowl-eligible teams; they're still clearly the best conference, though the quality of teams has definitely dropped off a bit from 2006-2009 levels. I think only the Big Ten+2 can say that this year, and we'll get to see how those two perform when they play each other en masse during the bowl games.

Also, "Game of the Century" in college football is just any regular-season 1v2 matchup. That wasn't SEC grandstanding; it's just a poorly-written name for a strong matchup.

See, this is Why the BCS system is so flawed. Stanford is Probably not going to win the pac-12 and yet all of you are rank them ahead of Oregon who beat Stanford! This is why we need a playoff! It gets too convoluted otherwise!

There's a reason wins over SEC teams are quality wins. Because the SEC has won the last *five consecutive national titles*, and looks to be *guaranteed a sixth*, because the rest of the FBS is so goddamn terrible that even when they play cupcake teams their "conference champions" lose. The only one of those titles that has even been CLOSE was Oregon-Auburn last year, and that was only because Auburn's defense was a joke, they just had the God of College Football playing quarterback.

Personally, I don't want a rematch. Because I want to watch the goon that is the LSU team take the Sooners, throw them in a burlap sack, and beat them with a stick until they start chanting S-E-C! S-E-C! Then, after we're done, we can watch Alabama and Arkansas open a can of whoopass on their respective bowl opponents, smile at our sixth consecutive title for the conference, and laugh you all out of the stadium, letting you sink back into the irrelevancy that is every other conference in College Football.