Conference Championship Matchups Set

Florida State took care of Florida and beat their two biggest rivals - Miami and Florida - in the same year for the first time since 1999. Then they had to wait to see Maryland knock off NC State to get them into the ACC championship game next week against Virginia Tech. Maryland, now 8-4, still should be congratulated on a much improved season from the 2-10 mark in 2009.

In the Big 12, teams had to wait for the BCS standings to come out Sunday evening to find out for sure who would play against Nebraska, who represents the north via winning head-to-head against Missouri, also 10-2 and 6-2 in the conference. In the south division, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Texas A&M all finished 6-2 in the conference and 1-1 against each other and 4-1 in the division. So the division title then went to the team ranked higher in the BCS standings, which is Oklahoma at #9.

The Big Ten ends with a three-way tie for first - Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Michigan State all 11-1 and 7-1 in the conference - and no teams within 3 games of them. Actually no other Big Ten team has over 7 wins. It looks like Michigan will be snubbed and miss out on a BCS bowl as Wisconsin, rated the highest in the BCS, will be in Pasadena, and Ohio State, next highest in the BCS, is likely to get an at-large bid to a BCS bowl. Mighigan State looks to be going to the Capital One Bowl against one of the top SEC teams, also on the border of making a BCS game.

The SEC championship game was already set between Auburn and South Carolina. Can Auburn lose to South Carolina and still play for the national championship? They have a substantial lead over 3rd ranked TCU and probably will drop to no worse than 2nd in the computers, but what will the voters do. I am convinced TCU will not go higher than #3 even if Oregon and Auburn both lose. Voters have been keeping them at #3 kind of as a courtesy to keep the undefeated teams at the top but when it comes down to having to pick between a undefeated TCU and a slew of one loss teams - Stanford, Wisconsin, Ohio State, Michigan State, potentially Auburn or Oregon - voters will pick two of the 1 loss teams to fill spots 1 and 2. In my computer, Auburn has #1 locked up unless they lose badly and Oklahoma wins in which case the Sooners would be #1 and Auburn #2. Personally, I think that if there are two undefeated teams, they should play each other even though Auburn, Oregon, and a few of the other SEC schools are probably better than TCU.

Here are the rankings headed into the conference championship games followed by predictions:

			BCS						Strength of
Rank	Prev	BCS	Computers	W	L		Team	Total Rtg.	Schedule
1	1	1	1	12	0		Auburn	99.378	13
2	6	9	6	10	2		Oklahoma	93.902	1
3	8	7	5	10	2		Arkansas	92.828	2
4	2	3	3	12	0		TCU	90.678	84
5	4	6	9	12	1		Ohio St	90.215	52
6	3	11	14	10	1		Boise St	87.653	57
7	11	2	2	11	0		Oregon	87.335	93
8	9	4	4	11	1		Stanford	85.149	71
9	12	5	7	11	1		Wisconsin	83.008	75
10	5	16	12	9	3		Alabama	82.718	10
11	7	10	7	10	2		LSU	82.304	9
12	10	14	12	10	2		Oklahoma St	81.248	39
13	14	12	10	10	2		Missouri	81.134	38
14	15	18	16	9	3		Texas A&M	79.776	7
15	16	8	11	11	1		Mich St	79.451	60
16	13	15	20	10	2		VT	77.278	66
17	18	17	17	12	1		Nevada	76.742	97
18	17	19	18	9	3		South Carolina	76.551	22
19	22	21	22	9	3		FSU	68.608	41
20	20	13	15	10	2		Nebraska	68.062	86
21	19			9	3		Hawaii	67.961	81
22	25	25	25	10	2		N Illinois	62.940	120
23	26	22	21	8	4		Miss St	62.870	30
24	34	24	24	8	3		West Virginia	61.977	69
25	27			8	3		Navy	61.742	87

Auburn 32, South Carolina 27
Oregon 40, Oregon State 20
Oklahoma 31, Nebraska 24
Virginia Tech 27, Florida State 24