re: Hypothetical: 1-9-12 never happens

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What team or teams choked down the stretch to let Bama back into the championship game? Okie State? Anybody else?

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It is incredible how lucky Alabama got.

They were far luckier than we were in 2007 when we only needed two games to go our way. The only upset we needed was Pitt over WVU. The other was Oklahoma over a Missou team that they had already beaten and was favored to do so again in the Big 12 CG.


Alabama needed at least FIVE games to go their way, with Iowa State over OKSU being just the huge upset everyone talks about.


But following the GOTC, the first team Alabama needed to go down was undefeated Stanford, who lost the next week to Oregon, whose only loss to was to LSU in week 1. Had Oregon won out, there is a good chance Oregon, who nearly beat Auburn in the BCSCG the year before, gets The Rematch instead of Alabama.

The following weekend though, Oregon was upset at home by USC. Saban paid Kiffin back for that by hiring him after he was fired and replaced by Ed Orgeron. fricking Trojans.


The following week undefeated Boise State lost to TCU. Had Boise, at the height of their hype, gone undefeated yet again, it would have been very likely that they finally get their shot at a title being the only other undefeated team with LSU.

That same week, perhaps the biggest but least talked about game of all, was Baylor beating 1 loss Oklahoma. Had OU and OKSU both had 1 loss, their 2 or 3 vs 4 matchup on SEC championship weekend while Alabama sat at home would have been a virtual play in game for the right to play LSU in the BCSCG.

But once OU was no longer a contender, OKSUs big win in that game wasn’t enough to overcome the loss to ISU.


And even if ALL of those games still go the same way, the sixth game that Alabama needed was actually LSU beating UGA.

Had LSU lost, it would have taken a lot of the shine off of a Rematch of “clearly the two best teams” meeting again.

It would have been unlikely that Alabama would have been ranked above the LSU team that beat them even with a loss in the last game against a good UGA team. Alabama’s “quality loss” would have taken a hit, and LSU would have owned the head to head, even though neither was a conference champion. At least LSU had won their division.

In that case the entire rankings would have been reshuffled as voters had to reevaluate all of those top 5 teams, and not just point to the GOTC and say oh well clearly they were the best two teams.

It would have likely been LSU against OKSU or possibly Stanford.


The stars truly aligned for Saban in a way similar to 03 when there were four five games that all needed to go a certain way on the very last weekend. This time it was just spread over the last three weeks.


The dude sold his soul no doubt, and has reaped the rewards.