The Missouri Tigers moved up to the 5th spot in the BCS Standings following their 40-26 win over Texas A & M, but also due to the fact that Illinois beat Ohio State.
I personally think Ohio State was overrated anyway, but the win by Illinois should help Missouri in terms of strength of schedule. LSU is now number one, followed by Oregon at two, KU at three, OU at four, and then Missouri.
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/BCSStandings Complete BCS Standings.
Could this be an all Tiger National Championship game? That’s still a long way to go, but I believe Missouri still has a chance. Oregon does look like the second best team in the country. They finish the season with Arizona and Oregon State, pretty much .500 teams and they should finish with one loss. LSU should retain the top spot finishing with Ole Miss and Arkansas, then beating either Georgia or Tennessee in the SEC Championship game. A slip up by Oregon could open the door for any of the three Big 12 teams.
Here’s where it gets interesting. Let’s say Missouri beats K-State and KU (which won’t be easy) to advance to the Big 12 championship game. Then in a rematch beat OU. How can you deny Missouri a shot at the national title if they beat the #3 and #4 BCS teams in consecutive games?
The other argument, how do you deny Oregon who beat up on Michigan, beat USC and Arizona State who was ranked at the time and only have one loss? Do you penalize the Ducks for not playing a conference championship game? Do you reward Missouri, KU or OU for winning a conference championship game?
Every year, these questions come up, but it’s fun this year to actually be able to throw Missouri into the mix. Here’s my suggestion on how they incorporate Bowl games into a playoff system of what I would call the BCS Playoffs.
For argument sake, let’s just take the standing of the top 6 BCS as of today. #1 LSU and #2 Oregon have a first round bye. #3 KU plays #6 West Virginia in the Orange Bowl on Tuesday December 18th. #4 OU plays #5 Missouri in the Fiesta Bowl on Wednesday Decemeber 19th. The highest seeded team would play #2 Oregon in the Sugar Bowl on December 31st and the lowest seeded team to win would play LSU in the Cotton Bowl on New Year’s Day. The National Championship game would be played the following week, Wednesday January 9th in the Rose Bowl.
The five bowl sites rotate each year, with each bowl hosting the Championship game every five year. You work the other non-essential bowls game in around the first round of the BCS playoffs and you play bowls such as the Outback Bowl, Capital One Bowl, etc as lead ins to the BCS playoff games on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day just as they do now.
Let me know what you think. E-mail me at [email protected] and tell me why this works or doesn’t make sense.
