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A lot has been made in the media this season of the unlikely bedfellows currently sitting in the top two spots of the latest BCS standings, and rightfully so. But the real story of the 2010 college football season isn’t the usual race to the top of the BCS polls. Rather, it’s the incredibly heated conference and division battles across the sport’s landscape.
Two months into the season, we’re just getting started.
Back in August, no one pegged Auburn and its star quarterback Cameron Newton -- a transfer student whose page in the 2010 Tigers Media Guide was smaller than the long snapper’s -- and Oregon, a squad whose expected starting quarterback was dismissed just months prior to the start of the season, to be the nation’s top two teams come the start of November. Even fewer pundits had the rest of the pack -- in just about every FCS conference and division -- to be so tightly crammed together following the Halloween weekend. September may be baseball’s month for pennant races, but this November is sizing up to give it a run for its money in terms of down-to-the-wire conference and divisional races.
Take the Big Ten, for example. Ohio State has won at least a share of the Big Ten conference title in each of the past five years, while over the past nine seasons, only four of the conference’s 11 teams have won or shared a conference crown. With Saturday’s Michigan State loss in Iowa City, four Big Ten teams currently have one loss in conference play heading into the final month of the season. The last time the Big Ten’s been this tight heading into its final month of play was 2000, when Michigan, Purdue, and Northwestern finished in a three-way tie for first place with identical 6-2 records.
Wisconsin and Michigan State -- which have both gone more than a decade without conference titles -- have the more favorable remaining November schedules, but Iowa and Ohio State are the more experienced teams. Outside of the upcoming Iron Bowl on Nov. 26 between Auburn and Alabama, perhaps no regular season game left on the 2010 college football slate has quite the intrigue surrounding it as Ohio State's visit to Iowa on Nov. 20.
Analyzing the records of the four one-loss Big Ten teams, Ohio State and Michigan State would appear to benefit most from a three-team tiebreaker situation, while the Hawkeyes and Badgers would be better off in a two-way tie for first. Though Michigan State’s loss on Saturday all but eliminated the Big Ten from a spot in the BCS National Championship Game for the third straight year, the conference hasn’t been this strong from top to bottom in years.
For fans of the conference (and its broadcast partners), that’s far more of an accomplishment than seeing an undefeated or one-loss Ohio State team take on an SEC powerhouse with a national title on the line. The aforementioned four one-loss teams are all in the top 20 of this week’s BCS standings, while Illinois, Penn State, Northwestern, Purdue, and Michigan are either already bowl eligible, or just one or two wins away. In its last year before transitioning to divisional play, the Big Ten is as competitive from top to bottom as it has been since that memorable 2000 campaign.
The Big 12 South, a division that’s usually decided when the Red River Rivalry game wraps up on the first Saturday of October, is entirely wide open. Either Oklahoma or Texas has represented the division in the Big 12 Championship Game in each of the past 12 years. This year? Baylor, a squad that hasn’t been to a bowl game since 1994, currently finds itself a half-game in front of both Oklahoma and Oklahoma State and in first place of the Big 12 standings. In the fourteen years of Big 12 division play, Baylor’s finished in last place or tied for last place in the Big 12 South thirteen times. With Saturday’s win over Texas in Austin, the Bears already have more Big 12 wins this season (four) than they had in any of their previous 14 years in the Big 12. However, coach Art Briles and quarterback Robert Griffin III aren't booking any hotel rooms in Arlington just yet. To play in its first Big 12 Championship Game, Baylor’s gong to have to beat Oklahoma State, Texas A&M, and Oklahoma in each of the next three weeks. Yeah, they'll have to earn it.
Texas A&M, meanwhile, currently lurking in the middle of the pack at 2-2 and suddenly the owners of an unexpected quarterback controversy, could still win the division by knocking off Oklahoma, Baylor, Nebraska and Texas in its final four games, as well. The only team outside of Texas and Oklahoma to win the Big 12 South, Mike Sherman's boys are a miracle November away from reaching the school's third Big 12 Championship Game.
Across the country, we’re looking at similarly tight three- and four-team division and conference races. The ACC Atlantic division, for one, should make for a wild finish. Florida State, Maryland and North Carolina State all currently have one loss in the conference and 6-2 overall records. The Terps, winners of four of their last five, finish the season with back-to-back home games against the Seminoles and Wolfpack.
The MAC’s East Division title should come down to the conference’s final weekend of play, too, as Temple, Ohio and Miami (Ohio) are all currently 4-1 and tied for first place.
How about the Mountain West? Everyone’s focused on this weekend’s Utah-TCU battle of unbeatens, but San Diego State -- 2-6 in conference play a year ago -- is almost silently keeping pace with the No. 4 and No. 6 ranked teams in the nation at 3-1 with games against both squads on Nov. 13 and 20.
Three teams have just one loss atop the Sun Belt conference standings. Hawaii, Boise State, Fresno State and Nevada, meanwhile, are all either unbeaten or with one loss in the WAC.
And then there's the Pac-10, where USC won seven straight titles in the 2000s. Despite No. 1 Oregon’s clear-cut dominance thus far, the Pac-10 still has three one-loss teams in conference play (Arizona, Stanford and Oregon State) that are just a game behind the Ducks in the standings. Oregon has yet to play the Wildcats or Beavers this season. The latter would love nothing more than a Saturday night Civil War matchup in Corvallis on Dec. 4 with a conference title, and in Oregon’s case, a BCS National Championship Game berth on the line.
Everywhere you look, in just about every conference and division within conferences, three to four teams are jockeying for position. Who needs Zenyatta and the Breeders Cup when you've got the Sun Belt and MAC East division to follow next Saturday?
During timeouts and replay reviews, sports stadiums tend to play Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' “The Waiting is the Hardest Part.” During comebacks, you’ll hear Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down.”
As we head into November, it’s only fitting to go with Petty’s “Into the Great Wide Open.”
From BCS conferences to mid-major divisions, the future is wiiiiide open.
