By Terry Bowden, Yahoo! Sports
November 12, 2007
With Ohio State's fall from the No. 1 spot in the polls after Saturday's 28-21 loss to Illinois, the road to the national championship has taken yet another turn with three weeks remaining in the season.
There are now 10 teams left with one or no losses, and you can honestly say that eight of them (Hawaii and Boise State just don't have the star-power schedule to stay above even the two-loss teams) have a legitimate shot at playing for the national championship.
As you begin to evaluate the actual talent levels, the polls and the strength of the remaining schedules, you can probably narrow your list down to about the top seven. But with the way things have been going this year, I don't think you can count out almost anything happening.
I will say this … for about the umpteenth time. This year is so much about the quarterback and the style of play he is allowed to operate under. How many times in the Ohio State game did Illinois quarterback Juice Williams single-handedly deny the Buckeyes a chance for the comeback victory? He made a critical fourth down late in the game on a quarterback sneak and twice more converted third-and-longs on quarterback draws. Ohio State had an answer for everything that Illinois could put up against them, except the quarterback.
If you look at the top six teams in the country, four of those schools – Oregon, Kansas, West Virginia, and Missouri – operate a system that utilizes a talented shotgun quarterback in a dangerous, wide-open offense. Given that Chase Daniel of Missouri and Todd Reesing of Kansas are not the running threats that West Virginia's Pat White and Oregon's Dennis Dixon are, they still operate a system that allows the quarterback to beat you in a lot of ways. Now, Matt Flynn of LSU and Sam Bradford of Oklahoma are no slouches themselves. In fact, I would guess they will be better NFL prospects when the time comes. But the offenses they are operating are more about getting the ball to talented athletes than letting the overall system be the thing that beats you. If you look at the many upsets that have occurred this year, and the new teams that have found their way into the top 10, it is quite often because of these offensive systems.
So, almost anything can happen over the next few weeks and nothing is etched in stone.
Remaining schedules are probably going to be the biggest factor in who ultimately makes it to the big dance. In fact, three of the top six teams will have their own little playoff to determine who emerges from the Big 12. Although there are still other games that must be played and won, No. 4 Kansas meets No 6 Missouri in the last game of the regular season and the winner of that contest will likely have to play No. 3 Oklahoma in the Big 12 championship game. Only one of those teams can make it to the national championship.
LSU will be favored in its final two regular-season games against Mississippi and Arkansas, but it too must face a difficult conference championship game to stay in the hunt for the national championship. Oregon and Arizona State each have some tough competition left, but because both are in the Pac-10, the schools don't have to worry about a big conference title game at the end of the season. Ohio State also does not have to worry about a 13th game to make it to New Orleans. But don't tell me a late season loss is not worse than an early season loss. Dropping to seventh in the next-to-last week of the season with only Michigan left is not likely going to get you back in the championship hunt.
All this makes you wonder if the inconsistency in conference championship games is fair when it comes to picking two national championship teams. I'm sure if LSU loses in the SEC championship game, after ending the regular season No. 1 and having played one of college football's toughest schedules, that there will be cries of injustice by the Tiger fans. But if Missouri can run the table and then knock off Oklahoma the second time around, you won't hear many complaints from the Show Me State. However, if LSU or Oregon drop a game and Oklahoma has to beat Missouri a second time this year to get to the big party, it will have a serious gripe about the system, too.
No one can predict how this whole thing will play out except maybe to predict that we don't know how this whole thing will play out.
That's what I predict, anyway.
Terry Bowden is Yahoo! Sports' college football analyst. For more information about Terry, visit his official web site.
Send Terry a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast. Updated on Monday, Nov 12, 2007 12:24 pm, EST Email to a Friend | View Popular
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