The BcS computers regard the BigXII (-4) as the best conference.  That alone shows that the BcS computers need a reformat and a reboot.  The computers have Oklahoma State as their #1 team, Oklahoma #4 (tied with Boise State) Kansas State #10, Texas #11, and Baylor #19 makes no sense to me. (more below)

OSU has played tree teams that were ranked at the time they played.  Texas, Texas A&M and Kansas State.  A&M is no longer ranked and Kansas State was ranked only because they were a one-loss team playing an even weaker schedule.  I honestly don't know why Texas is ranked in the top 20.  Also, their attempt at playing defense is sad, letting these weak teams pile up massive amounts of yards and points.  If OSU had to play LSU, Alabama, Arkansas, or even South Carolina OSU would fall way short.

Oklahoma lost to an unranked (and still unrakned) Texas Tech.  OU has wins over an over-ranked Kansas State, way over ranked Texas, and unranked Texas A&M.  The Sooners' win vs Florida State is hollow as FSU has dropped from top 10 to out of the polls.  Oklahoma was the only BigXII (-4) team that was somewhat playing defense.  They have been riddled by season ending injuries (to their top RB and WR in the last two weeks).  OU is the class of the BigXII(-4) but that really isn't saying much.

Kansas State is a weak team, playing a weak schedule, with a weak defense, and weak offense.  Their "best" win is vs Baylor who was ranked 15th at the time played.  Baylor has since fallen from the rankings.  When they played OU they were totally dominated and almost had a chance to win vs OSU, but both Oklahoma teams put up well over 50 points each on KSU.

Texas has played very weak teams and looked weak, two ranked teams and looked very weak.  The human polls have Texas 21 and 20 but due to the unknown quantity of the BcS computers Texas is ranked 16th.  The Longhorns' best win is vs an unranked Texas Tech squad or a 5-4 UCLA team.

I can only speculate that offense rankings is what is driving the BigXII(-4) so high and those offensive numbers are due in part to no BigXII team having a upper ranked defense.

Looking at the CBS Sports rankings I see a tragic injustice.  Look at these Strength of Schedule rankings:

BigXII(-4) teams: OSU #7, Oklahoma #4, Texas #6, Kansas State #14, and Texas A&M #2

SEC teams: LSU #12, Alabama #15, Arkansas #56, South Carolina #16, and Georgia #40

HOW?  LSU has played, and beaten, the #2 and #7 teams in the nation with a game vs another top 10 team coming up.  They beat West Virginia, Auburn, Mississippi State and Florida when they were ranked.  Arkansas has lost to the #2 team, then beat #9, and a top 25 ranked Auburn.  Arkansas also beat a then ranked Texas A&M team.

No top ranked BigXII team plays more than three ranked teams (and they are all conference games).  Also, none of them play more than one top 10 ranked team.

The Out of Conference wins still don't tip in the BigXII's favor.  The SEC has out of conference wins vs Oregon, West Virginia, Texas A&M, Penn State, Connecticut, and Cincinnati.

The BigXii(-4) has OOC wins vs TCU, SMU, Arizona, BYU, Connecticut, Florida State, and Miami.

NONE of the BigXII(-4) OOC wins are vs teams that are now ranked. 

The SEC's OOC wins are teams that are currently ranked (Oregon #7, Penn State #12, and Cincinnati #23).  Two of the teams were ranked but they are either current BigXII(-4) members (Texas A&M) or future BigXII(-4) members (West Virginia.

Please someone let me know how we can get these computers reformatted and rebooted as there is a problem with their programming.

[Ed: Bumped from FanPosts.]

Thus far this season, Alabama and LSU have shown very few weaknesses. There is a reason these teams are ranked 1 and 2. But neither team is entirely without flaws. Especially given the wrong matchup, these teams are fallible and this game could be the wrong matchup for either team.

Alabama's big flaw – No deep threat

The last few seasons, Alabama had Julio Jones to go deep and take the pressure off the running game. Thus far this season, there has been nobody in that role. It was hoped before the season that Marquis Maze would step into that role, but he has been more of a possession receiver and he has the 12.4 YPC average to prove it instead of the 14.5 average that Julio Jones put up last season.

On its own, Maze becoming more of a possession receiver than a deep threat is not a problem. Some of the best teams both in the NFL and college have had a possession guy as a top receiver. I recall the Dallas Cowboy teams of the early 90s having Michael Irvin as a possession guy (though he could go deep when needed) and Alvin Harper as the deep threat on the other side. The problem for Alabama is the lack of the deep threat. Other than Maze (who did finally get a big play against Tennessee), the longest receptions are by running backs.

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http://whatifsports.com/beyondtheboxscore/default.asp?article=2011CFB_Week10Picks

[Bumped from FanPosts.--ed]

Just a refresher on the games of the magnitude of this week's LSU-Alabama game.

• November 16, 1991 – Miami 17, Florida St. 16
• November 13, 1993 – Notre Dame 31, Florida St. 24
• November 30, 1996 – Florida St. 24, Florida 21
• November 18, 2006 – Ohio St. 42, Michigan 39

Those are the last four November meetings between numbers 1 and 2. All among the greatest games in college football history. All with incredibly high stakes (though only Miami would actually manage to win the national title among the winners, while two losers would of these games would rebound to win). This is the expectation that LSU and Alabama are stepping into. Anything less than a classic is a disappointment. That is the subtext for the next No. 1 vs. No. 2 November game. Luckily for us, it takes place this Saturday.

Previous entries: The Higher Stakes for LSU on Saturday

Is the loser out of the national championship chase?

Look again at those four games listed at the top. Some would say bizarrely, others can come up with a litany of legitimate reasons -- whatever the case, two of the four LOSERS in the previous four November No. 1 vs. No. 2 games won the national championship. Knowing that, is the loser really out of the chase? Here, I'll take a look at the the two No. 1 vs. No. 2 loser national champs and the prospects for both Alabama and LSU should they lose Saturday night.

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November 16, 1991 – Miami 17, Florida St. 16

November 13, 1993 – Notre Dame 31, Florida St. 24

November 30, 1996 – Florida St. 24, Florida 21

November 18, 2006 – Ohio St. 42, Michigan 39

Those are the last four November meetings between numbers 1 and 2. All among the greatest games in college football history. All with incredibly high stakes (though only Miami would actually manage to win the National Title among the winners while two losers would of these games would rebound to win). This is the expectation that LSU and Alabama are stepping into. Anything less than a classic is a disappointment. That is the subtext for the next number 1 vs number 2 November game. Luckily for us, it takes place this Saturday.

So with that as the background, what is really at stake here? Especially for LSU, how much more is at stake?

Skipping the obvious conference and national implications, LSU's status as a true national powerhouse is what's on the line here. I went to Auburn, but grew up and live in Pac-12 country. I can say that despite LSU's status in SEC land, out here, they are viewed as the team who's turn it is to be a prolonged contender from the Tennessee, Auburn, Georgia, LSU crew. Despite two national championships, LSU is still grouped with those schools on a program level (not on a this season level where they are obviously accepted given their status as the top ranked team after starting 3rd), not Alabama or Florida and not Michigan, USC, Notre Dame, Ohio St., Nebraska, Oklahoma or Texas. This game is LSU's chance to be accepted at that higher level of the sport.

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[Ed: Bumped from FanPosts]

I'm not trying to steal Eggplant Wizard's thunder, but mdak06 gave me an idea for what I'm calling the "floating schedule." I'm not sure if that is an accurate or terribly descriptive term, but it was the first word to come to mind so I'm going with it.

I like the idea of scrapping the divisions and giving each team a set of protected rivalries while rotating a significant portion of the remaining schedule. The current NCAA rules require a divisional setup with a round robin schedule in order to determine what teams go to the conference championship game. Other rules have received waivers in the past though and so I'm hoping the SEC and any other 14 team conference will ask for a waiver in this area as well. That's probably wishful thinking, but you never know.

As has been covered, the whole idea of the "floating schedule" is to protect important rivalry games as well as ensure that your favorite team is playing all the other teams in the conference on a regular basis. The current divisional structure makes this incredibly difficult to do. The following setup is made assuming that Missouri is indeed the 14th team.

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[Bumped from FanPosts to encourage more discussion.--ed.]

What rule says you have to have divisions in your conference? Divisions are actually, in my opinion, an impediment to fairness, as you can theoretically have the best three, four or five teams in one division, and it's certainly not uncommon to have the best two in a division. Rarely is that more apparent int he SEC than this year. I don't think it's a radical assertion to say that LSU and Bama should have the chance to play in an actual SEC title game, and not have what many consider to be the de facto championship game on November 5. 

Furthermore, there is an issue with odd number asymmetry, as seen in the 13 team scheduling headache. This is a headache not because of the number of teams, but on the insistence on having round robin divisions. And as the number in the divisions get larger, the scheduling gets unwieldy in a different way; it becomes difficult to maintain traditional rivalries. Let's say that Texas A&M is joined by Missouri as the two new entries into the SEC. Geography dictates that Auburn moves to the Eastern Division, which means that Alabama has to choose between having their every year interdivision game be the Iron Bowl or the Third Saturday in October.

Divisions are a mess that cause problems simply for the illusion of creating something that they ironically impede: parity. In general, dividing leagues or organizations into conferences makes sense, especially in college sports. Having multiple conference champions from the B1G, the PAC-12, the SEC, even the MAC and the Sunbelt are good for college football. But the further parsing into divisions is, quite simply, kind of dumb.

Instead I'd like to make a simple proposal, and I think the SEC is in the perfect position to lead the way in a new form of smart realignment. In fact, it's so simple that it hardly deserves the label "realignment" at all. There are three simple steps. 1) Do away with the round-robin divisions. 2) Maintain two traditional rivalry games (at least) per year for each team. 3) Play an eight game conference schedule, weighted where the opponents' cumulative record from the previous season is .500 (or very close to it). 4) Have the top two teams at the end of the year play in a conference championship game.

This would be pretty easy to make work - well as easy as scheduling can possibly be anyway.

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No, Virginia Tech is not coming. Neither is Georgia Tech. Neither is Clemson. Neither is FSU. Neither is Miami. Neither is North Carolina State, Maryland, or anyone else that you can throw out. No matter how hard we pursue them, they aren't going to come. No matter how long we wait, they aren't going to change their minds. Not when or if conferences go to 14, 16, 18, 32 or whatever teams, and not if the SEC promises a TV contract that is 5 times the size of everybody else, and not if joining the SEC means filling their programs with All-Americans, their stadiums with fans, and their trophy case with titles.

Why? Because with the addition of Pitt and Syracuse, the ACC is probably now the #1 academics conference in America, and at the very worst is only slightly behind the Big 10 at #2. (The SEC by contrast is no better than #4. If the Big 12 still had Colorado - or Nebraska or Texas A&M - the SEC would be no better than #5. And if the Big East still had Syracuse and Pitt, it would be difficult to claim that the SEC was definitely #6, and the SEC's case against the Big East would consist of having better schools at the bottom, not at the top. See the athletics conference breakdown by U.S. News and World Report (sorry, 2010 was the latest year I could find).

So, who cares about academics, since these are athletics conferences? Well, the people who make these decisions: the university presidents, who lest we forget have to look out for the entire university, not just the football team. And even if you put aside the idea that a university president should do what is best for academics because universities are supposed to be about higher learning, there is this fact: academics bring in much more money to a university than athletics does. As a matter of fact, it isn't close. The top athletics department in the country, the University of Texas, earned less than $90 million in athletics last year. Sounds like a lot, right? First, when you consider that Texas only actually made a profit of $7 million dollars in athletics and most universities don't come anywhere near that much (Auburn only turned a profit of $122,000 last year!) ... well that puts it into context, doesn't it? 

And how about this for even more context: The University of Texas took in $642 million in research - mostly federal and state grants - in 2010. Now think about it: athletics: $90 million. Profit: $7 million. Research: $642 million. And that is just research, only one source of revenue for a school that had an operating budget of $2.2 billion, only $318 million of which came from the state! And why are schools able to get so much academics-related cash? The strength of their academic programs, true. But also the reputation of the school (which makes it easier to win grants and contracts and raise top dollar from big donors, and oh yeah charge a premium on tuition ... the first thing that FSU did upon joining the ACC was make a huge increase in their tuition, and tuition accounts for over 1/3 of the revenue to Auburn University!), and the reputation of the school that you partner - as in be in a conference - with is also extremely important. Basically, you can take two schools where everything else was equal but the academic reputation, and the school with the better academic reputation will bring in much more money. 

So, by leaving the ACC, a combination of some of the most respected public universities in the south (Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland), outstanding southern private research schools (Duke, Miami) and respected northern universities (Syracuse, Pitt, Boston College) plus other strong, respected schools (Clemson, N.C. State, Wake Forest, Virginia Tech ... consider that the #14 school in the ACC academically, FSU, would be #7 in the SEC!) a university would cost itself many millions. They would lose much much more in academic revenue than they would gain in athletics revenue. And since athletics is basically a "break even" proposition (Ole Miss literally broke even last year, with ZERO net revenue from athletics!) where even a powerhouse like Florida didn't even reach $4 million in profit last year, an ACC school would basically just be throwing away millions upon millions from academics without getting any significant (unless $3 million against a $1 billion operating budget somehow counts as "significant") financial benefit from athletics. 

Now of course, SOME SCHOOLS do actually use successful athletics programs to drive their academic success ... gridiron accomplishments brings in publicity to the school, which increases enrollment, donations, money from the state, tuition, and may even result in a research grant or two. But those are schools that need the exposure from athletics because they lack a strong academic reputation. So, where joining the SEC would mean more money for USF's academics programs, it would mean less for FSU's. That's why USF would accept an SEC invite tomorrow, but FSU won't, and neither will Virginia Tech or anyone else that is being bandied about.

So why did Texas A&M join the SEC? Simple: because life in the Big 12 was so bad for them that they were willing to lose money on the deal. Also, even though there are - or were - a bunch of schools in the Big 12 that had good academic reputations as individual institutions, the Big 12 in and of itself did not have a reputation as a "strong academics conference" (like the Big 10, ACC and Pac-12), plus there really wasn't a lot of cooperation in the Big 12 on research (or much of anything else, which is why so many teams are leaving or trying to). So, there really wasn't much of an academic benefit to being in the Big 12 that A&M is giving up, and that is precisely the reason why Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Texas Tech wanted to go to the Pac-12 so badly last year and this year (and Texas, despite what they want you to believe, badly wanted to go to the Pac-10 last year too). That is not the case with the ACC, where everyone gets along beautifully, there is a lot of institutional cooperation, and mere membership alone enhances an institution's reputation and puts them in a better position to gain greater academic dollars.

So, there are two things that SEC fans should take away from this. 1. Stop rooting for the SEC to pick off an ACC school, because it isn't going to happen. 2. Start rooting for the SEC to become better and stronger academically. (Not necessarily more like the arrogant, elitist ACC, whom FSU basketball star Sam Cassell famously called "a wine and cheese crowd." Just better academically.) Academics matters, and it is past time that fans of SEC sports recognize it. Believing that the SEC's BCS dominance would make it more attractive to ACC schools (for instance) totally ignores how the business of running universities works.  

Oklahoma has set forth a set of demands to remain within the BIG 12 including the termination of Dan Beebe and a share of the LHN along with some specific guidelines as to what Texas can do and not do with their private network. Now Texas only has to agree to give up some of the money from the Network vs. most of it should they join the PAC XX. Ultimately Texas is getting exactly what they wanted and Oklahoma gets to look like they stood up to the bullies from Austin.

Texas A&M has reiterated they are gone at the end of this year. Period. Mr. Billionaire Boone thinks he is making headway in convincing them to stay and has contacted Rick Perry for support.

If A&M holds to their current position then the SEC may need to dust off those applications that have supposedly been denied because I don't think the non offer/ offer sitting on Missouri's desk is going to happen. With a fan base split 70% B1G, 30% SEC a non move is the safest course. You don't leave what's now going to be equal and stable conference for a richer and more stable conference if it isn't your fans first choice. Especially when you're the head of the Board that runs the conference you're leaving.

Yeah, that's right.  I just compared this whole realignment situation to WWI.  If there are any history buffs out there you can see all the amazing parallels between this mess and The Great War.  One small and seemingly insignificant event leads to other players doing things no one thought they would do.  And now there are multiple nations lining up with one another to try to claim a position of power and hopefully end the conflict sooner rather than later, but only time will tell if the chaos will be worse than anything we had ever imagined.

There is news tonight that the ACC is in talks with Pitt and Syracuse.  Judging from the "no comment" response from multiple Syracuse officials it looks like it's going to happen.  It doesn't surprise me to see the ACC go after teams like Pitt and Syracuse.  I still can't quite figure out all the rumors of the ACC going after Texas and some other Big 12 teams, but here's my attempt to understand what is going on behind the scenes.....

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