OK, before I get rolling in this post, I want to make it clear that I’m not predicting a championship, nor is this the result of hubris after the Oregon victory.  What I’m trying to do is honestly assess whether there is any chance of Cal making it to the National Championship game assuming Cal does everything right from here on out.  According to Stewart Mandel the Bears are one of nine teams with a shot at it (Ohio St., Michigan, Florida, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, Louisville, USC and Cal).  After looking things over I think there are a handful of additional teams that could do it although Mandel made sure to indicate that he was including whether he thought the teams had the skills to pull it off and not just theoretically being in the running.  In any case, what would it take for the Bears to make it to the title game?

First of all, it of course requires that Cal go undefeated for the rest of the season.  There is just no way a 2 loss team makes it to the title game.  The other thing it would require is that there not be 2 or more undefeated teams in the BCS conferences as a 1 loss team won’t go before an undefeated team.  Part of me thinks that Cal could edge out a Big East undefeated team like Louisville, and while I’ll leave that as a VERY outside possibility, it would require that Cal SO destroy every one of their remaining opponents that the pollsters are impressed and that the undefeated Big East team have a number of close calls and not look impressive.  Even still I think there would be a tendency for the pollsters to give the nod to the undefeated team.

So that means that at most one team can go undefeated.  Let’s look at the undefeated BCS teams remaining:

• Ohio State
• Michigan
• West Virginia
• Louisville
• Florida
• USC
• Missouri

Missouri is undefeated because of a very weak schedule and there is no reason to believe they will remain undefeated.  USC will have one loss because if Cal goes undefeated, Cal will beat them.  Of the top 4 only two can be undefeated because they play each other.  Florida has a very difficult schedule with games against Auburn, Georgia, Florida St. and the best team in the SEC west in the SEC championship game.  If they go undefeated the most assuredly deserve the shot at the national title game before the Bears.

I’m going to assume that the winner of the Ohio St. vs Michigan game goes undefeated because the Big 10 looks to be a 2 horse race between them.  So for Cal to even have a plausible shot, the winner of the West Virginia vs. Louisville game must lose some other game and Florida must get tripped up somewhere in it’s schedule.

But what about all the 1 loss teams… what does it take for Cal to be the 1 loss team that goes to the title game?  Well, I think there is only one 1 loss team that would definitely go before Cal: Tennessee.  Obviously having beat us, they’re going to go before us particularly considering their loss was to Florida.

As for the rest, USC wouldn’t go before Cal because Cal beat them, the loser of the Ohio St., Michigan game wouldn’t go because their opponent would be going.  Because there is no playoff in college football, for the title game there is a desire to make sure that the two teams haven’t already played each other.  Texas suffers from the same problem if Ohio St. wins out and for some reason I think would still suffer from that factor if Michigan went because of the Michigan over Ohio St. over Texas line.  However that line isn’t as clear.  Overall I don’t think they go before Cal because in the end I think the Pac-10 will be considered stronger than the Big-12.

Florida is a team that would likely go before Cal because of the Florida over Tennessee over Cal line, however it really depends who Florida loses to and by how much.  If they lose a squeeker to one of the tough teams I mentioned, they still would likely rate over Cal but a big loss, particularly to a lesser team would likely put Cal in front.

Notre Dame is probably the biggest wild card in relations to Cal because of their ‘X’-factor.  I think a big determining factor will be how they match up against USC relative to Cal.  If Cal blows USC out and Notre Dame wins a squeeker, even with the ‘X’-factor, I think Cal goes.  The best thing that could happen is for USC to destroy Notre Dame after Notre Dame wins the rest of their games because it makes the Pac-10 and Cal look stronger.

And that’s it for teams that are current ranked in front of Cal with the exception of Louisville and West Virginia who won’t rank ahead of Cal with 1 loss.  There are a few teams that are below Cal right now that could leapfrog Cal with strong play:

• Auburn
• Clemsen
• Georgia Tech

But that’s pretty much the size of it.  So in summary, here’s what needs to happen for Cal to go to the national title game in my humble opinion:

• Cal finished out 11-1 in impressive fashion
• Florida loses at least one (one big or any two)
• The winner of the Louisville vs West Virginia game loses some other game
• Tennessee loses a second game
• Cal beats USC by far more than Notre Dame (or Notre Dame loses another game)
• Texas doesn’t do something to impress the pollsters
• Auburn, Clemsen and Georgia dont’ do something DRAMATIC to impress the pollsters

That’s a pretty reasonable list.  While there is a pretty reasonable shot that at least one or two of them don’t happen, it’s also still very much in the realm of possibilities that Cal go to the national title game.  How about that!

This entry was posted on Monday, October 9th, 2006 at 10:54 pm and is filed under Sports, Sports - Cal Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.