Things could get very uncomfortable for the BCS system and its proponents this year. In the past the system has certainly not been without controversy, and every year since its inception at least one school has had a legitimate complaint about their team being snubbed. This year, however there might be more griping than ever. This year there might be more teams with worthy arguments that they should play for the national championship than ever. This year it is reasonable to think that we may have as many as six undefeated teams at the end of the regular season.
After nine weeks of college football there are seven teams left undefeated. Last year after week nine there were eight undefeated teams, Texas, Alabama, Penn State, Texas Tech, Utah, Boise State, Ball State and Tulsa, yet neither team that played for the national championship did so without a loss. The difference is that last year five of those teams were already ranked below at least one team with a loss. Four of those five teams, Utah, Boise State, Ball State and Tulsa, would not have played in the championship game even if they had gone undefeated as evidenced by Utah, the highest ranked of the four, who did go undefeated but was left out of the national championship. Tulsa was ranked only 18th at the time and finished outside of the top 25 as did Ball State.
Of the remaining four, Texas and Texas Tech had yet to play each other, Texas Tech had yet to play at Oklahoma State and against Oklahoma, Alabama still had to face LSU and play in the SEC championship against Florida and Penn State still had to go to Iowa, where they had lost five of the last six times they had played. Six weeks later, Texas had lost to Texas Tech, Texas Tech had lost to Oklahoma, Alabama had lost to Florida and Penn State had lost to Iowa, leaving several one loss teams, but no undefeated team at the top.
This year Alabama and Florida both have the SEC title game looming, but neither will play underdog the rest of the season until then, and it’s likely that one of the two teams will emerge from that game undefeated. The other five teams only have three games against ranked teams combined; Iowa plays at Ohio State, Cincinnati plays at Pittsburgh and TCU hosts Utah. The seven teams combined are likely to be double-digit favorites in all but six games for the rest of the year and none of them will play a game in which they are not favored. Upsets are a part of life in college football, but I can’t imagine all seven of these teams getting beat by a lesser team. The BCS better hope that at least five do, or the grumbling is going to get louder than ever.