I Want Michigan in the BCS, and I Wanted It Yesterday

Surprised?

There are a lot of good football games on this slate this weekend, and I will be making a lot of assumptions in this post (i.e. Wisco beating Penn State this weekend, among others). But according to my predictions, a Michigan victory over Ohio State will put the Wolverines in the BCS Sugar Bowl.

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Except for one extreme scenario*, a maximum of two teams from one conference can go to the BCS. In the SEC, that likely means that LSU/Bama are in the BCS while Arkansas, Georgia, and South Carolina partake in early-January trips to Florida.

The Rose Bowl will be filled by the Big Ten champ (Winner of Wisco/MSU) and the Pac 12 champ (Winner of Oregon/UCLA).

The Orange Bowl will get the ACC champ vs. the Big East champ.**

The Fiesta Bowl will get the winner of Oklahoma and Okie State, and that leaves three open spots.

Houston will get one (assuming they win out), Stanford will likely get one, and Michigan will get one. The Sugar Bowl will pick first as their tie-in (SEC) will be in the championship game, so they pick Michigan or Stanford. The Fiesta then picks either Michigan or Stanford (whoever is left), and then the Sugar gets stuck with Houston.

As Michigan has a national fan base and is a big draw, the Sugar will likely pick Michigan over Stanford to face Houston in New Orleans. Get me to Bourbon Street!

On a similar note, I would rather face Houston over Ark/Georgia/SC in the Citrus Capital One Bowl, especially with an invite from the BCS.



*LSU/Bama are ranked #1 and #2 in the BCS, but don’t win the SEC. For the first time in history, this is conceivable. Georgia would need to beat LSU in the SEC Championship game and then have LSU/Bama stay in the top 2.
**Technically the Orange Bowl is not locked to the Big East champ. The At-Large selection order this year is Fiesta, Sugar, Orange. But because the Sugar's tie-in will be in the championship game, the selection for the At-Large teams will really be Sugar, Fiesta, Sugar again, Orange. There is no way that Michigan would get through the first three picks and go to the Orange, but the Sugar could theoretically pick the Big East champ over Houston. Seems very unlikely unless it’s West Virginia and they think that a UofM-WVU match-up is interesting.