The Crystal (Pigskin) Ball

Its been too long since I talked about College Football. November will be soon upon upon us, meaning a month of great football action which will separate the manly, sexed up wheat from the limp, non-bowl bound chaff. I have a few thoughts about the all important National Title Game contenders:

First, I think Penn State is leading the pack and (pretty much) controls its own destiny. The Fighting Paternos are undefeated and have only three games left to run the table. Only the Michigan State game looks particularly challenging, but baring a big injury or some weird voodoo I think they will finish undefeated with the Big Ten title. This should lock up a trip to the BCS title game... unless both Alabama and an Big 12 South Team (most likely Texas) also finished undefeated. But I don't see that happening. Any slip up by Penn State, however, and they are done.

Texas and Alabama also hold their own destinies in their hands. Texas has to go to Lubbock to face the also undefeated Red Raiders. If Texas can run its table, including the Big 12 title game, they are in like (Matt) Flynn.

Theoretically Texas Tech, if the can beat the Longhorns, will consume their life-force and become them, meaning they will only have to win out in order to be in like the aforementioned Flynn. But frankly I don't see this happening, as even if they beat Texas they still have OK and OK State, and then the big 12 title game to deal with.

Alabama is in the same metaphorical boat as Texas, but I think it will fall overboard sooner rather than later. Bama is a good team but I think that either LSU or the winner of the SEC East will get them at least once. They can still win the SEC and go to the BCSTG even with a loss, but they won't leapfrog an undefeated Penn State to get there.

Georgia and Florida need to win out, win the SEC, and hope for either a Penn State loss or a Big 12 South Fall from grace. Its possible but less likely.

No one from the ACC or Big East deserves consideration this year.

And finally... way out on the West Coast.... are the Trojans. If USC wants to go to the big game, they need to win out and get a lot of help. Their problem is that they really have no chance for any more signature wins against highly ranked teams. However, an 11-1 Pac-10 Champ USC team could (maybe) get in, provided two of the following things happen:

1)Penn State Loses
2)Missouri pulls an upset in the Big 12 Championship game
3)The winner of the Cocktail party loses another game but then goes to the SEC title game and beats Bama.
4) Bama loses twice, LSU wins the SEC west and wins SEC CG (not likely but possible).
5)The Big 12 South winner loses a game but then wins the Big-12 CG.

Basically USC is now 4th in line for 2 spots, so they'll need at least two of the three hypothetical conference champions to slip up in order for them to slide past and into the title game.

But there's another consideration which few people have brought up: technically USC is tied for first place in the Pac-10, with the OSU Beavers, and technically OSU has the tiebreaker as a result of their head to head win over USC. The Pac-10 does give out "co-champs" to teams which finish the season with identical records, but the team who won the head to head match up gets the nod for the Conference's automatic BCS bid (typically the Rose Bowl). What this all means is that(technically mind you) USC could go 11-1 but not really be first place in their own conference. All this is predicated on OSU winning the rest of their games, which could happen but is hardly a lock. And if it did happen, USC would be "co-champs" and not out of National Title Game contention, but the whole thing feels a bit hollow.

Of course, we all know that nothing is ever a sure thing in College Football, so any and all of these predictions are to taken with a Dinty-Moore sized helping of salt. Whatever happens, we have a great month of College Football to look forward to, culminating in every team taking the Month of December off right as they are playing at their best.