Many feel that BYU has a good shot a going undefeated this year. But will that be good enough for a BCS bid? In order for BYU to be guaranteed an at-large bid, here is what has to happen.
1. There are 5 BCS bowls, BYU is not an automatic qualifier. Therefore, there has to be fewer than 10 automatic qualifiers. That means that no champion from the MWC, WAC, C-USA, MAC nor Sun Belt finishes in the top 12 or in the top-16 and ahead of the champion of one of the automatic qualifying conferences. Notre Dame needs to not qualify.
2. They would have to hope that one of the AQ conference champions in the National Championship game is the only BCS representative from that conference. That may mean that the SEC is shut out of the BCS national championship. Almost every other conference, except for the PAC-12, has one really good team and everyone else is suspect. Or everyone in the conference is closely matched and they will take turns beating each-other up...like the Big 10.
3. BYU will have to have a dramatic rise in the polls late September/early October. They will likely not be ranked to begin with. They will need to look impressive against Washington State, Utah and Boise State. They finish with Idaho, San Jose State and New Mexico State. Not the slate for a late-season poll rise.
4. They will need Utah, Boise State, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame and Washington State to have good seasons and make the Strength of Schedule component strong. Sure, beating Boise State is normally a good thing, but not if BSU finishes 8-4 or worse, especially with TCU no longer in the MWC. If Boise State finishes 11-1, and BYU deals the one loss, that would be great.
5. It would be nice for BYU for Notre Dame to have 2 losses, with one of them to the Cougars. Notre Dame with only 1 loss could cost the Cougars a seat at the table, even if that 1 loss is to BYU.
The pre-season polls will be out in a couple of weeks. We will find out then how realistic the BCS is for BYU this year.
Right now, here are my picks for conference champions...
FBS
BCS
ACC...Florida State
Big 10...Wisconsin
Big East...Louisville
Big 12...Oklahoma
PAC-12...USC
SEC...LSU
Non-AQ
C-USA...Houston
MAC...Ohio
MWC...Boise State
Sun Belt...Arkansas State
WAC...Louisiana Tech
FCS
Big Sky...Montana State
Big South...Stony Brook
CAA...James Madison
Ivy...Harvard
MEAC...Bethune-Cookman
MVFC...Northern Iowa
NEC...Robert Morris
OVC...Eastern Kentucky
Patriot...Lehigh
Pioneer...Drake
Southern...Appalachian State
Southland...Sam Houston State
SWAC...Texas Southern
Note: The Ivy League (traditional academic powerhouses) and the SWAC (traditional Southern African-American Colleges) do not participate in the FCS playoffs and the Pioneer Conference (No Football Scholarships) does not have an automatic bid.
All in all, it's the standard usual suspects.
2 comments:
Don't 6 AQ chanps only tie up the first 6 spots rather than 9 of 10 spots?
True, there are 6 AQ conferences, + ND is 7. And the non-AQ conferences together take 1 spot. That is 8 spots already locked up. Good luck if you are BYU and not in the top 4 if this happens. There is always someone or two someones from an AQ that has only 1 loss that does not get the AQ spot. That is what I was thinking.
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