BCS Just Can’t Quit Gators — Yet

Posted Nov 27, 2007 by Aaron Knox

Updated Nov 27, 2007 at 04:32 PM

GAINESVILLE — The University of Florida’s probable Capital One Bowl bid will have to wait until Sunday.

The Bowl Championship Series released all but 16 teams Tuesday, and the Gators made the list of finalists, but they would need a highly improbable series of events to take place to reach a BCS game. Each conference can take a maximum of two teams. As SEC champ, the winner of the Tennessee-LSU game is guaranteed one spot.

And unless something wacky happens, Georgia is guaranteed the other. BCS rules call for a team ranked No. 3 in the BCS standings that isn’t a conference champ to automatically receive an at-large bid. If No. 3 is a conference champ, then No. 4 can get an automatic bid if it isn’t a conference champ. Georgia is No. 4 this week and probably would move up to No. 3 if No. 1 Missouri loses to Oklahoma.

So the Gators’ only shot is if the voters do something crazy and leap someone over the Dawgs, driving Georgia down to No. 5. Then, the Orange Bowl would have the chance to stiff the more deserving Bulldogs and take the automatic sellout the Gators would bring.

Here are the 16 teams still under consideration for the BCS:

Conference champs already qualified: Ohio State, West Virginia

Could earn automatic bid by winning conference this week: Boston College, Virginia Tech, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arizona State, Southern California, UCLA, LSU, Tennessee

Still alive for an at-large bid: Brigham Young, Clemson, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas