Your guess is as good as mine

The Wannstache virus has officially liquefied all of the BCS's internal organs, its body falling limp to the ground with a gory splash of blood, shit, and bile. So many teams have a legitimate argument to be in the National Championship Game. All we know for sure is that the following teams are in the BCS somewhere:

Ohio State
Louisiana State
Virginia Tech
Oklahoma
West Virginia
Southern California
Hawai'i

NOTHING ELSE IS CERTAIN.

Most all of the pundits have quickly slotted Ohio State in the title game, and I'd say that's likely, but surely not definite. #1 and #2 could be any combination of a list that includes any of the above teams, along with Georgia, Kansas, Missouri, and Arizona State. That gives you 55 possible combinations for the NCG alone. Because any of the BCS bowls could lose their tie-in champion, there's no destination guaranteed at this point. The only slots that are all-but-guaranteed are VT to the Orange and Hawai'i to the Sugar. Depending on how the top-two shakes out, other teams that can sneak into a BCS bowl (but not the NCG), would be Illinois, Boston College, and maybe even Florida (if Georgia falls out of the top-4 and the Orange takes the Gators over us; not likely but possible).

What Georgia fans thought was the best case scenario may actually turn out to be the worst case scenario. If Ohio State and LSU go to the NCG, we will face Hawai'i in the Sugar, as was predicted before LSU lost to Arkansas. Even if Ohio State is #1, giving the Rose the first pick, they couldn't take Georgia to face USC unless the Sugar consents, which they won't. The language of the rule from the BCS website: "When two bowls lose host teams, then the bowl losing the number one team may not select a replacement team from the same Conference as the number two team, unless the bowl losing the number two team consents."

But I'm not giving up on being in the big one yet. I think enough has been said about Georgia not winning the SEC that the voters probably will impose a de facto must-win-your-conference rule by not voting Georgia any higher than #3. That's fine by me as long as nobody has us lower than #3, and they split the votes among different teams to be slotted ahead of us. Assuming everybody has Ohio State #1, if some people put LSU ahead of us at #2, some put USC, some put Oklahoma, they could spread out the votes enough to have Georgia slide into #2 without anybody having us there in the actual ballots.

The ballots are independent from the prior weeks, but I'm sure there are some voters who simply move down the teams that lost, and move up the teams that didn't in the same order as they were before. There is certainly no rule that says they have to.

Here is a smattering of combinations that I would put at or near the top of the "likely" list, but there's no telling what the voters (and the selection committees) will do:

Scenario #1
NCG - Ohio State v. LSU
Rose - USC v. Illinois
Sugar - Georgia v. Hawai'i
Orange - VT v. WVU
Fiesta - Oklahoma v. Kansas (or Arizona State)

Scenario #2
NCG - Ohio State v. USC
Rose - Arizona State v. Illinois
Sugar - LSU v. Hawai'i
Orange - VT v. Georgia
Fiesta - Oklahoma v. WVU

Scenario #3
NCG - Ohio State v. Georgia
Rose - USC v. Illinois
Sugar - LSU v. Hawai'i
Orange - VT v. WVU
Fiesta - Oklahoma v. Kansas (or Arizona State)

Scenario #4
NCG - Ohio State v. Oklahoma
Rose - USC v. Illinois
Sugar - LSU v. Hawai'i
Orange - VT v. Georgia
Fiesta - WVU v. Kansas (or Arizona State)

Scenario #5
NCG - LSU v. Georgia
Rose - Ohio State v. USC
Sugar - WVU v. Hawai'i
Orange - VT v. Kansas
Fiesta - Oklahoma v. Arizona State

Scenario #6
NCG - USC v. LSU
Rose - Ohio State v. Arizona State
Sugar - Georgia v. Hawai'i
Orange - VT v. WVU
Fiesta - Oklahoma v. Kansas

Scenario #7
NCG - USC v. Georgia
Rose - Ohio State v. Arizona State
Sugar - LSU v. Hawai'i
Orange - VT v. WVU
Fiesta - Oklahoma v. Kansas


The bottom line is, don't get your hopes up, Dawg fans, but it's Selection Sunday, all the regular season games have been played, and we are VERY MUCH in the discussion of who plays for the Crystal Pigskin. Unbelievable turn of events considering the debacle at Neyland and needing a miracle fumble to win in Nashville. Absolutely stupendous job by our players, coaches, trainers, cheerleaders and fans. Most of all, bless you, Coach Richt!