SEC Still Has Slim Title Hopes After Short BCS Drop For Bama

You know... Florida is sitting at #6 in the BCS.

If all the above happens to let a 1-loss SEC champ in, you can just add a 3rd loss (or a 2-loss SEC Champ) and viola the Gators are in the title game.Well, it may not be that easy. A 1-loss Oregon, KSU, or Notre Dame may be favorable to a 1-loss Florida (but the computers look favorably on the Gators). So, we better throw in a rockin' landslide over Florida State to sway the human voters as well as the computers. 

UGA benefits from anyone in front of them losing.  Bama was a must, now we will see if a couple of the others fall.

Interesting situation coming up. If BCS Standings stay the same, SEC might could only get 1 team in to the BCS at all. Kansas State is number 1, so Fiesta could chose Notre Dame as a replacement. Rose gets Stanford to replace Oregon and winds up with Nebraska from the Big 10. Fiesta chooses again, gets Oklahoma. Sugar has Bama/Georgia as SEC champion. Orange has Florida State/Big East Champ. Sugar's only options would be another SEC team or Clemson.

As I said just after the Bama game, Georgia benefits from the Bama loss because the Bama-loving media - including Mr. SEC - will now open the conversation to get a one-loss SEC champ into the National Championship game. Georgia benefits by being in the same boat as Bama.  And sure enough, within hours, ESPN's Mark May is talking up the possibility of Alabama OR GEORGIA making it to the title game.  Discussions like this were not happening last week, and you can be darn sure that Mark May was not building up Georgia until that moment.  So the immediate benefit is that Georgia is now getting talked up in order to make a win by Bama in the SEC title game look more impressive, but the bigger benefit to Georgia is that they are forced to include group Alabama and Georgia together in the "should a one-loss SEC champ play for the national title" argument.  Instead of collateral damage, call it collateral benefits.

Now, if Georgia does beat Alabama and the Dawgs need to plead their case, do NOT put Mark Richt in front of the TV cameras.  In 2007, when it was low-key Richt making his case against enthusiastic Les Miles, he was steamrolled.  Instead, put Todd Grantham in front of the cameras and let him talk about Georgia having the best defense in the country and how the team is on a roll and can beat anybody in the country.  Yes, make it a challenge.  And Of course, talk about how illegitimate a national championship game without the SEC would be.  Would the Oregon-KSU winner REALLY be the best team in the country?  College football fans are going to be CHEATED by not having the SEC - the true litmus test - in the title game.  If you don't beat the SEC to win the national title, you have cut corners and are a fraud.  Saban will effectively make this case if Bama wins the SEC, so we need to begin planning our campaign - with Grantham - as well in case we win the SEC.  I hate the spin factor too, but it's real - just ask Saban, Miles and Meyer.

Very interesting. I read that of the Top 4 teams ranked this week, Alabama has had the toughest schedule so far. But, that doesn't seem to help much after a loss (perhaps they would have fell further than 4th with a weaker schedule but its hard to see where they would be higher than 4th with even a stronger schedule).  So, assuming only one of the Top 3 teams loses going forward and a SEC team does not make the National Championship Game, does that make the SEC more or less likely to add a 9th Conference game? How would Alabama feel if they had to play Florida and Auburn vs. Western Carolina and Auburn in addition to the Conference Championship Game?