Realistically, what's the highest USF can finish?

At what point do teams with one loss start jumping over the Bulls?

USF has been the best story in college football this season, but at what point will voters start ranking the one-loss powerhouses like Oklahoma and USC ahead of them.

Is there any scenario where USF can finish No. 1? Does every other team have to have two losses for that to happen?

 

PArt in this equation always tough to remember is USF is a member of the Big East which is a member of the BCS. If USF goes through the season unbeaten and gets snubbed in favor of two one-loss teams... whooo boy, there's a gonna be in-fighting, especially if the one of the one-lossers come from the SEC

 

I would say 3.

Don't think LSU will get beat this year. Cal is beatable and could get knocked off at some point.

If LSU finishes the season at 1, Cal gets knocked off........LSU and South Florida finish the season undefeated.....yet LSU will still play some 1-loss team (OU?)......

This is why they have to go to a playoff.

They have to.

 

USF is still vulnerable. They still have Rutgers, UConn and Cincinnati left to play. If they make it through that stretch and the season unbeaten (which I doubt will happen), they deserve a shot at the title game.

 

I would love to see a scenario where USF is the only undefeated team left before the bowls are announced. I think is very possible since running the table in the SEC almost never happens. Ohio State will eventually lose to somebody. I just don't think they're that good.

I think that's what it would take for USF to have a chance at the title game.

I'm all for anything that causes chaos because that's the only way we'll ever get a playoff. Maybe it takes a team like USF playing for, or winning the title for these presidents to recognize that we desperately need a playoff.

 

What's higher than no. 1? That's where USF can finish! [/Webby]

I agree with Mizzou and Chef...the arrival of parity seems to have made a playoff more imperative than ever.

As for this year, I'm sure many higher ups are praying USF loses so there's no "well USF went 12-0 why did 9-3 USC get the spot in the national title game? questions.

 

Undefeated USF deserves and would get a title shot based on poll and schedule strength. Yesterday's action tells you it has a long way to go in accomplishing that.

 

I would love nothing more than to see the Bulls (or someone like them) run the table in a BCS conference and get left out of the title game for a one-loss team, because that's the only chance we have of getting a playoff system in the foreseeable future. But I'm afraid USF won't make it through unscathed.

 

Realistically they can finish No. 1, this isn't a Boise State situation here. Two of the five wins are over team's that are or will be ranked by 1 p.m. today. I would say Auburn is still a better road win than what Ohio State (Purdue) or California (Oregon) have to their credit.

Also their schedule, you're looking at wins over six bowl teams minimum and potentially as many as 8.

There's a long way to go but they've survived the two toughest weeks in terms of big matchups around the nation and a potential upset.

 

USF beat Auburn in Jordan Hare at night, and Auburn beat Florida in the Swamp at night.

Translation = USF is, as the kids say, the truth.

I don't think USF will have played a schedule that deserves a national championship game spot, but if the Bulls are one of just two undefeated teams (or the only one), then they have to play in that game. If you go undefeated in a BCS conference, with the current rules, you should play for the title.

That said, I don't think USF could beat any of the top 5-10 teams in the country any more than once in ten tries. But they're in the Big East, which is in the BCS, so them's the rules.

 

It would have to take weeks of close wins like Saturday's for USF to slide. USC lost to Stanford -- Stanford! -- though the Sooners' loss to Colorado might look less and less worse each week. But I wouldn't dock a team too much for a close win here, given wins at Auburn and against West Virginia.

Heck, people kept moving up Wisconsin after escaping UNLV and The Citadel. USF gets the benefit of the doubt for now.

 

10 years ago, five years ago, fuck it last year, if you make that statement, people look at you as though you had six eyes. Nothing better illustrates the topsy-turviness of college football this season better.

Some of it's going to depend on how USF looks in their wins, but there are going to be times where I can see moving a one-loss team ahead of them. I probably would have moved Florida ahead of USF had the Gators held on.

A big issue is that the teams most likely to pass USF might not have the opportunity to do so with a signature win. South Carolina could do it with a win over Florida towards the end of the season, though perhaps that won't mean as much. If Boston College beats Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, that could move them past the Bulls (though that's also an unbeaten team). Oklahoma has a pretty unimpressive schedule after Mizzou this week, so if they didn't pass USF this week, they probably won't.

The only way USF falls while winning is if they had a game like they did against Florida Atlantic, and there was enough tumult that teams that might have taken advantage like Florida and Georgira couldn't. So you'll probably be in a situation where you look at South Florida when Cal loses to USC, think hmmm, do I really want to move them to No. 2 ... no other options, though ... okay.. If South Florida goes undefeated, it's going to be really hard for a one-loss team to pass them in the BCS rankings, because they'll have potentially three games against Top 25 teams left on the schedule, so their SOS won't be substantially worse than anyone else's, which was the case with Boise State.

Also, as for not doing polls until October: a good idea in theory but one that wouldn't change much, because there's so many preseason polls out there that even if the media and coaches held off on ballots until the fifth week of the season, they're still going to be guided to a large degree by what other people think about these teams. USC, LSU, Florida, West Virginia and Michigan were still going to be regarded as the top five teams by a lot of voters, whether they committed that to a poll or not.