http://www.tidesports.com/article/20101016/NEWS/101019777/1011
Tide not out of BCS title hunt, but will need help
Staff Graphic | Anthony Bratina
By Tommy Deas Executive Sports Editor
Published: Saturday, October 16, 2010 at 3:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, October 15, 2010 at 3:00 p.m.
( page of 6 )
The 2010 regular season is halfway over for the University of Alabama football team, and the Crimson Tide already has one defeat.
The defending national champions dropped from the No. 1 ranking they had held since the preseason to No. 8 in the major polls after last weekend’s loss to South Carolina. The first official Bowl Championship Series standings, which will decide which two teams will play for the national title, haven’t even been released yet and Alabama is already on the outside looking in at the championship race.
The title chase, however, is far from over. In fact, the experts caution that you’d better strap on your seat belt.
“Anybody who wants to write the obituary on the Crimson Tide is certainly premature,” said Jeff Anderson, a California resident who runs one of six computer ranking systems that figure into the BCS formula. “Anybody who thinks Alabama is out of it at this point is clearly not looking back at their BCS history.”
Help wanted
Because of the loss to South Carolina, Alabama will need help to get back into the national title picture.
“If Alabama wins out, I think all they need to play for a national championship is for there to be only one undefeated conference champion out of the Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-10,” said Brad Edwards, ESPN’s resident BCS analyst (and, incidentally, a 1994 UA graduate). “If two of those conferences have a champion with a loss, I think a one-loss Alabama would finish ahead of Boise State or TCU.”
The first BCS standings will be released this Sunday, but Edwards has already done the math: the Crimson Tide would be 10th in the rankings right now, with Boise State at No. 1, followed by Oregon, TCU, Oklahoma and Ohio State.
The BCS standings are derived from a formula that includes six different computer systems as well as the USA Today Top 25 coaches’ poll and the Harris Interactive Poll, which polls 114 voters in a panel made up of former collegiate coaches, players and administrators as well as current and former media members.
The first thing that needs to happen for Alabama to be in the BCS Championship Game on Jan. 10, 2011, at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., is for the Tide to run through the rest of its schedule without a loss and then win the Southeastern Conference Championship Game on Dec. 4 in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome.
The margin for error for UA, however, was exhausted with the South Carolina defeat. With another loss, Alabama’s chances of defending last year’s national title evaporate.
Even if the Tide rolls the rest of the way and finishes 12-1 through the league championship tilt, other teams will have to lose. Oregon in the Pac-10, Ohio State in the Big Ten and both Nebraska and Oklahoma in the Big 12, if unbeaten at the end, all figure to finish ahead of a one-loss Alabama team in the final BCS Standings.
Wide-open race
Even with all the undefeated teams still remaining, Edwards looks at the current standings and believes the quest for the two spots in the national title game is wide open.
“Typically at this time in the season there is one team I can usually circle and say they control their destiny,” he said, “but given the stature of the teams that are still undefeated, I don’t think there’s any one of them that’s a shoe-in to be ahead of the others.
“It was different last year when you had teams like Alabama and Florida and Texas stacked up against Cincinnati. You know Cincinnati is going to be in the back of the pack of that group.”
Alabama’s strength of schedule in the SEC would lift it past both Boise State and TCU in the rankings that count.
“In the end, is it more of an accomplishment to go 11-1 with one schedule or go 12-0 with another schedule or even 10-2 with another schedule?” said Anderson, who runs the Anderson and Hester Rankings, which began in 1994 and have been part of the BCS formula since the BCS system originated four years later. “In my rankings, a one-loss team with a schedule like Alabama’s is certainly going to be right near the top. It’s impossible to say right now where they would end up because so much varies from year to year on where the other teams stand up.
“Alabama’s schedule is certainly going to end up being pretty tough with the games still to come against LSU, Auburn and the SEC Championship Game against South Carolina or Florida, probably.”
Where Alabama’s schedule doesn’t hold up as well is out of conference. Penn State has an attractive name, but the Nittany Lions are 3-3. San Jose State and Duke are a combined 2-9.
Georgia State is playing its first season of football and is not yet a full NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I) program, but that game won’t really hurt UA. Since Georgia State’s games against lower-division teams don’t carry much weight, the game can only help Alabama.
“It would be better than playing a (FBS) team that was 0-and-11,” Edwards said. “If Georgia State (now 4-2) ends up having a good record against that schedule, it’s better than playing like a (currently winless) Memphis.”
If Alabama is able to get through the rest of its schedule without a loss, it would get a bonus from the SEC title game. That extra game, likely against either the South Carolina team that handed UA its only loss or the Florida Gators, could make the difference in getting UA back into the BCS title.
“They’ll still be fine just because they would be beating LSU on the road and winning at a neutral site against either South Carolina or Florida, and obviously the win over Auburn would be high-quality,” Edwards said. “Alabama’s best-case scenario is to play South Carolina again and get to avenge that loss.”
The circumstances of Alabama’s loss would also play in UA’s favor. The South Carolina defeat came at the end of a stretch of three consecutive games against ranked teams.
“It’s not just strength of schedule,” said Dan Wetzel, co-author of the book “Death to the BCS” and national columnist for Yahoo.com. “It’s also this cluster of games in a row, with two of them on the road. What happened to Alabama, I liken to (Southern Cal) in recent years when they had those great teams and lost one game.”....