Week 12 wrap up

Last week, I said postseason options were getting clearer?  Forget I said that.  While some conferences championship game berths did finally get decided, the BCS got thrown into absolute chaos. 

I guess the early signs of the big upsets were starting to show on Thursday night.  VT let UNC cut a 17 point lead down to 3 in a game that had the weakest last play of a close game I've ever seen.  Then, UAB upset Southern Miss to ease up the non-AQ race.

But Friday started an insane weekend.  Oklahoma State fell in double OT.  Unfortunately, that one loss will probably define them in the context of the BCS more than their 10 wins, including a 60 point drowning of Texas Tech.

Saturday kept things interesting - FSU lost to UVA in an improbable series of events to end a game, keeping the ACC race alive.  And then minutes later, Oregon lost to USC in a similar fashion.  After that, ABC switched over to the Oklahoma-Baylor game, which had a different kind of wild ending.  The lesson there - beware of calling time out when the other team is trying to force overtime.

It was like watching the entire 2007 season in the span of 29 hours.

And, as an added bonus, Lee Corso dropped the f-bomb at the end of College Gameday.  I had one of those "did he really say that?" moments until I saw the video apology later on.  It's okay Coach Corso, I thought it was funny.

So, when 4 of the top 7 lose, things get all shuffled up in the BCS.  But first, everyone's still looking towards their conference positions and postseason placement.

Of course, any team from a conference with a championship game that is one win away from a bowl game at this point is also one loss away from not going.

ACCAtlantic
Clemson has clenched the division last week, and gave up this week.
Bowl eligible: Clemson, FSU, Wake Forest
Needs a win: NC State (because they scheduled 2 FCS teams, they must reach 7 wins)
No bowl: Maryland, Boston College

Coastal
VT did their part to stay alive, but FSU let them down in allowing them to clench.  So, the battle for the Commonwealth Cup in Charlottesville will determine the Coastal winner, for the first time since 2007.
Bowl eligible: VT, UVA, GT, UNC
Eligible but sitting out: Miami  (self-imposed ban due to scandal from the start of the season)
No bowl: Duke

SEC
East
Georgia wins!
Bowl eligible: Georgia, SC, Florida
Needs a win:  Vanderbilt, Tennessee
No bowl:  Kentucky

West
The most contested division in all of college football.  In fact, the top three teams are still fighting for the right to play Georgia on December 3.
LSU controls its destiny for sure.
Arkansas and Alabama need to win out and then go through a series of tiebreakers.  There are so many what-ifs that it could fill an entire blog post and then some.  But, if LSU wins on Friday, they take the division.
Bowl eligible: LSU, Alabama, Auburn, Arkansas
Needs a win: Mississippi State
No bowl: Mississippi

Big Ten
Legends
Michigan State clenched the division
Bowl eligible: Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Nebraska
No bowl: Minnesota, Northwestern

Leaders
The winner of the Penn State/Wisconsin game wins the division.
Bowl eligible: Wisconsin, Illinois, Penn State, Ohio State
Needs a win: Purdue
No bowl: Indiana


Pac-12
North
Oregon screwed up, and so they still need to win to clench the division.  If they lose, Stanford would clench.
Bowl eligible: Oregon, Stanford, Washington, California
No bowl: Oregon State, Washington State

South
UCLA appears to be in control, but the race is really close between them, Az State, and Utah.  In fact, if UCLA loses next week to USC, but still manages to get into the Pac-12 title game at 6-6 and lose that, they would not be bowl eligible, even with 6 wins, because of their losing record.  That has got to be the weirdest case of bowl eligibility I've ever seen.
And, if you think it would be clearer if USC wasn't banned from the Pac-12 title game, you're right.  The winner of UCLA-USC would clench.
Bowl eligible: Arizona State, Utah
Um...maybe bowl eligible:  UCLA
No bowl: Arizona, Colorado, USC (banned)

Big 12
Now, the OU/OK State game isn't as "winner take all" as it originally appeared.  Oklahoma still has to face Iowa State, who knocked off #2 OK State.  If Iowa State wins there and knocks Oklahoma to 3 losses, OK State wins the conference (currently at 1 loss, and only the OU game left on the schedule).
Bowl eligible: Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Kansas State, Baylor, Texas A&M, Iowa State, Missouri
Needs a win: Texas Tech
No bowl: Kansas

Big East
Something finally happened in the Big East this week.  Two teams got knocked out of contention - Syracuse and South Florida.  Other than that, it's still a toss up.
Rutgers set the magic number at 3 (2 losses and 1 game left). 
The winner will probably get a token ranking of #25 just so the BCS isn't completely embarrassed.
Bowl eligible: West Virginia, Cincinnati, Rutgers, Louisville
Needs a win: Pittsburgh, South Florida, Syracuse
One loss away: Connecticut
No bowl: Still, no one's knocked out.  Perhaps next week?

No time to catch our breath.  We're heading into rivalry week, so all bets are off.