Five schools for thought
Title picture down to teams from SEC, Big 12
With 10 weeks of the season done, the list of contenders for the national championship has been cut from 120 teams and 11 conferences to five teams and two conferences.
And you didn't think college football had a playoff system, did you?
Now that it's November, even the coaches who were reluctant to talk about next week's game, much less next month's games that will determine the teams playing for the national championship, are more loquacious. "I don't mind mentioning it now," said Florida coach Urban Meyer, who has one of the five teams very much in contention for the national title. "We're playing for a lot. The first goal is to get to Atlanta [for the Southeastern Conference championship game]. And the second goal is to be in the national picture. And we're in the national picture."
Yes, they are, since the Gators have already clinched the SEC East and will face Alabama in the SEC title game Dec. 5.
That's half the picture. Two SEC schools for one spot.
In the other half, a team from the Big 12 South - No. 2 (in the BCS rankings) Texas Tech, No. 3 Texas, or No. 5 Oklahoma - looks like a front-runner.
Among that trio, Texas Tech, fresh off back-to-back victories over Texas and Oklahoma State, is the current leader. But the Red Raiders, who have this week off, must travel to Norman next week for a meeting with coach Bob Stoops's Oklahoma Sooners.
Win that and the Red Raiders will be in the Big 12 title game. Win that and they will be in the BCS title game in Miami Jan. 8.
An Oklahoma win, however, will muddy the waters. That would leave Oklahoma, Texas, and Texas Tech each with a loss, with each team holding a trump card over one of the others. Texas beat Oklahoma, Texas Tech beat Texas, and Oklahoma will have beaten Texas Tech.
The Big 12 put in several tiebreakers to settle three-way ties. In this case, however, none works until the fifth tiebreaker, which is the final BCS rankings before the Big 12 title game. The flaw is that outsiders and computers will decide which Big 12 team plays in its conference championship game.
The beauty of the regular season is that lots of crazy things can happen. Stuff has happened almost every weekend for the past month.
Last weekend, for example, Iowa's win over Penn State knocked the Nittany Lions out of BCS title contention and all but guaranteed the BCS title game will be Big Ten-free for the first time in three years.
The Pacific-10 also seems the longest of long shots with Southern Cal (currently No. 6 in the BCS rankings) the only team having a chance. And the Trojans need help, lots of help, to reach that goal.
To get USC to Miami, the following scenarios must develop:
1. USC must win its final games against Stanford, Notre Dame, and UCLA by wide margins.
2. Alabama must lose (probably twice).
3. Florida must lose.
4. Texas, Texas Tech, and/or Oklahoma must lose at least once, preferably in the Big 12 title game.
Logic, even in the crazy world of college football, says that while one of those things might happen, all of them won't. USC can't even control its own Rose Bowl destiny. Oregon State - which knocked off USC in September - will be the Pac-10 champion unless it loses to California, Arizona, or Oregon.
Such drama and speculation are the fuel for college football backers who do not want a playoff system, arguing that it would diminish the regular season.
There is one scenario in which Texas and Texas Tech, or Oklahoma and Texas, play for the BCS title in a regular-season rematch.
Even on the level of the Atlantic Coast Conference, which has yet to win a BCS game in this century, a playoff mentality exists and it involves Boston College, which can make it to the ACC title game for the second straight season if it beats Florida State, Wake Forest, and Maryland.
A loss in any of those games would send the Eagles into the murky world of second-tier bowls, with a post-Christmas trip to Boise a possibility. It will be the last ACC connection with the Humanitarian Bowl, which has signed a deal with the Mountain West and Western Athletic Conference.
The worst-case scenario for BC would be if it lost all three of its remaining games to finish 6-6, with Clemson and Virginia also finishing 6-6 fighting for the ninth ACC bowl slot.
If the Eagles get squeezed out, they must look for another landing spot. The parachute this season is in other bowls since neither the SEC nor the Big 12 will have enough teams to meet their bowl requirements. That could send the Eagles anywhere from the Papa John's Bowl in Birmingham, Ala., to the Insight Bowl in Phoenix.
To avoid all that, the Eagles simply need to win games.
Which is what the playoffs are all about, even if they aren't called playoffs.
Globe Top 10
1. Alabama
2. Texas Tech
3. Florida
4. Texas
5. Southern Cal
6. Oklahoma
7. Penn State
8. Boise State
9. Utah
10. Ohio State 