BCS Bowl Game Scenario's

[willia33]

Alright, so what is the story with the different scenario's for a BCS bid?

1. Do we win the Big East if we win out and Rutgers loses one more Big East game?

2. If we USF and Rutgers wins out, Rutgers will get the tiebreaker, what will it take to get an at-large bid?

[eebullman]

1) yes

2) basicly finish in top 10 (technically 14, but that would be a long shot for an at large), assuming:

    a) Hawai doesn't finish above 12, or

    Hawai doesn't finish above 16 and above the champion of BCS conference

you can read all the rules here:     http://www.bcsfootball.org/bcsfb/eligibility

edit: fixed link

[JrGMan2004]

Alright, so what is the story with the different scenario's for a BCS bid?

1. Do we win the Big East if we win out and Rutgers loses one more Big East game?

2. If we USF and Rutgers wins out, Rutgers will get the tiebreaker, what will it take to get an at-large bid?

I would hope that being 11-1 would be enough to get us an At-Large BCS bowl berth, but we need some convincing wins for the rest of the year to impress the pollsters, which might not happen...

[BULLfreak]

We need WV to beat RU and we need to win the rest of the games. In doing that we win the BE and WV should get a at large that means 2 BE teams in a BCS bowl

[GarySJ]

I can think of two three scenarios where a USF gets into a BCS game without winning the Big East.

1. USF finishes 3rd or 4th in the final BCS standings, which affords an automatic invitation. It's a long shot, considering how the humans are going to hammer us after losing to Boise St-- oops, I mean Rutgers -- but I wouldn't rule it out entirely.

2. USF is the only team eligible to be chosen at-large. This depends upon an application of current BCS rules, which are:

a. No more than two teams from one conference can be in the BCS.

b. BCS at-large teams must be chosen from the top 14 of the BCS standings.

There are 10 BCS bowl slots. Six of them will be filled by the ACC/SEC/Big Ten/Big 12/Pac-10 champs, plus Rutgers as Big East champ in this scenario.

The SEC and Pac-10 will undoubtedly each get a second team into a BCS game.

The remaining two teams have to be teams that are (a) in the Top 14 of the BCS standings, ( not a champion of a BCS conference, and © not in the Pac-10 or SEC. It's possible that USF will be the only such team.

This would require:

- West Virginia to fall out of the BCS top 14, leaving USF and Rutgers as the only Big East teams in the top 14. This probably requires them to lose a third game (since this scenario already has them losing to Rutgers). However, this takes some of the luster off USF's win against them.

- Hawaii losing, or otherwise not qualifying, isn't mandatory but would be a big, big help.

- Oklahoma, Ohio State, and the Virginia Tech/Boston College winner next week winning their conferences and vanquishing everyone in their path, thus preventing any second team from these leagues from being in the BCS top 14.

- Runner-up ACC and Big 12 teams like the VT/BC loser, Kansas, Missouri, and (really, is USF really that bad when this next team is a BCS at-large threat) Virginia may need to pick up an additional loss. The Big Ten is so bad that if Ohio State is unbeaten, no other league team will come close to the top 14.

- I'm not concerned about Cincinnati. They could get into the Top 14 but I think we'd be chosen over them in this scenario, especially since it calls for us to beat them.

3. This is really a longshot, but... USF and Rutgers each lose another league game, USF ends up 10-2, West Virginia wins the Big East at 6-1, and USF is the only eligible at-large choice as explained in #2.

So there's still a lot to play for, not the least of which is a Big East championship.