re: Quick Breakdown of Losses Under Miles

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Texas and USC began the season ranked ahead of us and I don't think we would have been able to jump them

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I disagree. While the SEC did not have the irrefutable benefit of the doubt that it does now, it still commanded a great deal of respect. But there were three other factors that I think would have almost certainly tipped LSU ahead of Texas:

1) Katrina sympathy. Going undefeated in the wake of that calamity would have made it hard for anyone to vote us out of the top 2,

2) 2003 split championship -- this season was just 1 year removed from the LSU/SC split title controversy, and that would have been a VERY juicy storyline for a National Championship Game matchup, and

3) Auburn '04 -- in 2005, only one AQ conference team in the history of the BCS had ever been left out of the National Championship Game, and it was from the SEC. The SEC was also the only conference that had won two Championships in the BCS era (Tenn '98 and LSU '03; ACC, Big XII, Big East, Big 10 and Pac 10 had 1 each). Screwing our undefeated champion out of the game two years in a row would have been very hard to justify.

With all that riding in our favor, I think an undefeated LSU team absolutely gets into the National Championship Game against SC.