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Who is going to be appearing in the BCS bowls, as the so-called "projections" stand right now? Well, Price Per Head bettors can speculate all they want, but the fact is that the most important games of the season are coming; those that can "upset the applecart," so to speak. The worst enemies of those teams that aspire to be "BCS busters" are not the Alabamas, Florida States or Ohio States.
BCS Buster - that term is generally assigned to the teams that reside outside the BCS conferences - the ones that are not guaranteed an automatic bid to the Bowl Championship Series for their champions. This year's hopefuls include undefeated teams like Northern Illinois (#16 BCS), who busted the BCS and got into the Orange Bowl last season, and Fresno State (#15), which has had a number of close calls and is still undefeated. Right now both of these schools would be eligible for that, in the sense that while they are not in the top twelve, they are indeed ranked among the Top 16 in the BCS Standings and are ahead of one of the teams that would be an automatic qualifier.
In this particular case, that "AQ" would be Central Florida, which defeated Louisville and Houston, is a 17-point favorite over Rutgers in the WagerHome.com football odds this Thursday, and looks like the likely winner of the American Athletic Conference (the newly-created hybrid of the Big East and Conference USA refugees), but had a too-close-for-comfort encounter with Temple this past weekend and is ranked #18 in the BCS.
College football bettors should know, however, that the real BCS busters are the ones who will provide the opposition in the conference championship games, because for the most part, none of them are in the BCS picture at the moment but automatically put themselves in that kind of a position with an upset.
In the SEC, Alabama is cruising along as the #1 team in the nation, but they won't even get to the conference title game if they don't beat Auburn two weeks from now. And even if they do, they have another opponent they have to beat. That opponent would be either Missouri or South Carolina, either of which would only get to the BCS with a win in that game. But if Alabama loses, football sportsbook bettors know it is not likely they will be left out of the BCS at-large picture (there are four such bids). After all, they're not going to give Fresno State a bid ahead of the Tide, are they? You better believe they aren't.
Do you see where we're going here? It's not unlike the system of conference tournaments in basketball, where a team can pull an upset to get an automatic bid they would not have had before, and because they have to be included they knock out another team that was "on the bubble."
No, there is not a probability of it happening, but if, say, Duke (unranked in the BCS) were to beat #2 Florida State in the ACC title game, both of those teams would probably go to a BCS bowl. If #13 Michigan State, with the nation's best defense, could beat #3 Ohio State for the Big Ten title, who's to say the Buckeyes wouldn't get one of those at-large BCS bids? WagerHome customers know they could. And in the Pac-12, if the South division representative wins and goes to the Rose Bowl, what will be done about #5 Oregon?
The point we want to make to Price Per Head football bettors is this: if you're a Northern Illinois or Fresno State booster, don't load up the bus for Miami, Phoenix or New Orleans just yet. There are a lot of things that will probably have to break your way first for that to happen.
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