October should sort out title contenders, pretenders
Welcome to Elimination Month in college football.
A formful, almost upset-free September did a pretty lousy job of thinning the field of national championship aspirants. With 12 unbeatens in the Top 25 and another 12 ranked teams owning only a single "quality loss," title dreams proliferate from coast to coast.
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Three games to watch, every week in October: Saturday, Oct. 7 Florida 23, LSU 10 Texas 28, Oklahoma 10 California 43, Oregon 24 Saturday, Oct. 14 Florida at Auburn (7:45 p.m., ESPN) Arizona State at USC (8 p.m., ABC) Michigan at Penn State (8 p.m., ABC) Saturday, Oct. 21 Iowa at Michigan (TBA) Texas at Nebraska (TBA) Georgia Tech at Clemson (TBA) Thursday, Oct. 26 Clemson at Va. Tech (7:30 p.m., ESPN) Saturday, Oct. 28 Texas at Texas Tech (TBA) Georgia at Florida (3:30 p.m., CBS) All times Eastern |
By Nov. 1, the two-dozen title dreamers should be cut to 10 or fewer. The whittling began Thursday night with North Carolina State's upset of No. 17 Florida State -- a shocker that revived the schizoid Wolfpack and buried the passé Seminoles. (Suggestion for Bobby Bowden: Take one more run at it next year with what should be a very talented team. Then slowly walk away.)
The whittling will accelerate Saturday.
Come Sunday morning, lovely BCS championship game parting gifts will be presented to the loser of Texas-Oklahoma. In recent years, the Red River Shootout more often has been a validation game for the winner, not an elimination game for the loser -- but that's exactly what it is now with both teams already owning one defeat.
The loser of Oregon-California will, in all likelihood, be out, as well. Cal already has been housed at Tennessee, and Oregon's victory over Oklahoma carries the stain of inept officiating -- something the pollsters will take into account even if the computers don't. The winner of what should be an offensive free-for-all becomes the primary Pac-10 threat to USC, which has a regular-season winning streak that is starting to take on Ken Jennings proportions.
But October's most riveting separation of powers will occur in the Southeastern Conference, where the serious bloodletting is about to begin. Within two weeks, the SEC might look like a body-piercing convention. Nobody left unscarred.
"Could be over in a hurry, huh?" Georgia coach Mark Richt said of the league's unbeaten teams.
Could be. Consider: Florida and Richt's Bulldogs are 5-0 and playing at home Saturday -- and they're both underdogs against teams with a loss (LSU and Tennessee, respectively). Those are four powerful teams in one conference, and that doesn't even include the top-ranked team from the SEC: Auburn.
That tells you about the competition in the nation's best league -- a spicy topic this week, and probably in the coming weeks as well. I expect the SEC's power teams to knock each other off in succession over the coming weeks, leaving the nation's best league without an unbeaten team and sitting outside the championship debate.
And if that happens, the drawling caterwauls will be audible on Mars. In fact, the pre-emptive complaining already has begun.
On the SEC teleconference Wednesday, several coaches went along with the assumption that it's simply too tough to go unbeaten in the league -- especially in a 12-game season that eliminates a bye week and reduces recovery time from injuries.
"It's a very difficult task," LSU's Les Miles said. "At best."
Said Steve Spurrier, one of the coaches who won it all within the last decade: "In the mid-'90s when we made our run at Florida, there weren't quite as many good teams. Now, you've probably got six teams that could win the conference championship. … Until we have a playoff, it all comes down to scheduling and winning all your games."
"In the mid-90s when we made our run at Florida, there weren't quite as many good teams. Now you've probably got six teams that could win the conference championship. ... Until we have a playoff, it all comes down to scheduling and winning all your games."
It also should be noted that the SEC's last national champ, LSU, did not win all its games, either. The Tigers lost to Florida that year before finishing 13-1 and sharing the title with USC.
So you could argue that getting through the SEC unbeaten is not essential to winning a national title. But the Florida and LSU titles have been drowned out by lingering bitterness of the Great Snub of '04 -- when getting through the SEC unbeaten wasn't even good enough for inclusion in the BCS championship game, much less ownership of the crystal football.
Auburn had the lousy timing to go undefeated in the same year USC and Oklahoma went 1-2 in the polls all season. Now, the very sight of Auburn at No. 3 in the polls -- right behind USC -- already is driving SEC loyalists mad. Even with two months left to sort things out, they fear another screwing in the BCS standings or an inevitable loss for every team.
Among that group, seemingly, is Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville. He ripped the bowl system Wednesday, and all but predicted that the SEC champ would be left out of the BCS title game once again.
"I've about had it with this playoff deal," Tuberville said. "We all understand in our conference how tough it is. In our conference, that [a playoff] is about the only chance we'd have to make it."
"I've about had it with this playoff deal. We all understand in our conference how tough it is. In our conference, that [a playoff] is about the only chance we'd have to make it."
Auburn hosts Florida on Oct. 14. Victories over the Razorbacks and Gators would clear the path to the final two games of the year, against ancient rivals Georgia and Alabama. Survive those, and all Auburn would have to do is prevail in the SEC title game, most likely against Tennessee, Florida or Georgia.
Simple, huh?
Of course, it's hard to feel sorry for the SEC when it comes to the double jeopardy of the league championship game. This is the league, after all, that pioneered the expansion to 12 teams and the creation of the title game, all in pursuit of piles of cash. So a potential BCS-blowing upset in early December is simply a risky side effect of greed.
But if October is as bloody as anticipated in the SEC, here's one scenario that could really test the pollsters and computers: In what order would the system rank some combination of an undefeated Big Ten champ (Ohio State or Michigan), an undefeated Big East champ (West Virginia or Louisville), an undefeated USC and a 12-1 SEC champ (Auburn, LSU, Florida, Tennessee or Georgia)?
Tennessee coach Phil Fulmer said he "absolutely" could see a one-loss SEC team in the BCS title game ahead of an undefeated team from another conference. Richt, who votes in the USA Today coaches' poll, tentatively goes the other way.
"I'd probably vote for the undefeated team," Richt said. "And I do have a vote. Now, if the undefeated team played next to nobody and the other team lost by one point, maybe I'd vote the other way."
These are the potential debates looming on the horizon in college football. But before we get to the arguing, we need October to do its job and whittle down the list of legitimate contenders. That job begins now.
Pat Forde is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at ESPN4D@aol.com.
