#1- Soft AQ Scheduling
Exibit A- Ohio State- Call me a hater
but this is a joke. I know Ohio State
has tried to beef up a non-conference schedule and Cal, San Diego State,
Buffalo and Florida A&M were ‘really solid five years ago when they were
scheduled.’ I can look past that, but
the B1G as a whole is pretty weak but hey, they can’t control that either. Can Urban Meyer lead this team to consecutive
12-0 seasons? Why not, who’s going to
stop them? The only games that even look
like they might be a bit of a challenge are Oct. 5 at Northwestern and the
season finale Nov. 30 at Michigan.
Urban Meyer isn’t going to let his team lose to Northwestern and I just
don’t think Michigan isn’t ready. That
leaves, Nebraska perhaps in the B1G Championship? Eh…
There’s no excuse for the Buckeye’s not to go undefeated and regardless
of their strength of schedule, Ohio State won’t be left out of a BCS Title if
they go undefeated.
Exibit B- Louisville- Seriously, I know it sounds crazy but they’ve still got their AQ status and if they’re 12-0 with a bunch of 11-1’s will they get skipped over? Maybe, but like Ohio State, it’s still another sure-shot 12-0 for the SEC to compete with. Louisville is a solid team with arguably the best quarterback in the nation in Teddy Bridgewater and there isn’t a single team on that schedule they shouldn’t beat.
#2- The ACC
This should
get the SEC’s blood boiling but who better to end the SEC’s run than little
brother, ACC. Well, the ACC has two very
strong candidates in Florida State and Clemson.
Granted, for an ACC team to be taken into consideration they’ll have to
be undefeated and both teams have some major obstacles in their way. For Clemson it’s SEC foes Georgia and South
Carolina and Atlantic rival, FSU. For
the Seminoles a mid-season visit to Clemson and their annual matchup with
Florida are two pretty major road blocks but both are winnable. These teams both have a legit shot at BCS
Title runs, narrowing the chances for the SEC even further.
#3- The SEC
Look, at
some point this conference is just going to beat itself, isn’t it? There’s no arguing that this is the best
conference in college football and there are probably six teams capable of
winning a national title and there’s my point.
In the SEC West, you’ve got ‘Bama, A&M and LSU. In the East, South Carolina, Georgia and
Florida are all solid contenders. With
some light schedules for some of the big boys in the other BCS conferences
there might not be room for a one loss team.
Assuming that, take a quick look at the schedules and you can pretty
much cross off LSU, Georgia, Florida and Texas A&M (I’m picking ‘Bama in
their Sept. 14 game). That leaves South
Carolina and Alabama. A closer look at
the Gamecocks schedule and undefeated seems unlikely. They open and close the regular season with
non-conference games against North Carolina and Clemson, play at Georgia in
week two, have a three game road stretch against Arkansas, Tennessee and
Missouri (not exactly murderer’s row, but this isn’t traditionally a good road
team) and finally a Nov. 16 matchup with Florida. South Carolina’s isn’t going undefeated. That leaves Alabama. Undefeated in the regular season is a
definite possibility with their only real tests coming Sept. 14 at Texas
A&M and Nov. 9th against LSU.
Should the Tide run the table there’s still that pesky SEC East champ
standing in the way.
At the end
of the day, there’s no question that the SEC is the best conference in the
nation and clearly has some of college football’s best teams. What are the odds two non-SEC teams go
undefeated? Probably pretty slim, but
don’t punch the SEC ticket just yet.
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