Thursday, November 20, 2008

Rutgers in the Orange Bowl? It's a long shot -- but, yes, still possible

I saw this on NJ.com... and I thought I would steal it.

Posted by tluicci November 17, 2008 14:59PM

Kenny Britt and Rutgers could grab an Orange Bowl berth, but it's a long shot.


As if Rutgers' bowl prospects weren't confused enough, here's something else to make it complete chaos: According to the Big East, there are at least two scenarios in which the Scarlet Knights can still win the league title -- which would mean a BCS berth in the Orange Bowl.

Crazy for a team that started 1-5, but true.

Ready to be bowled over by Rutgers to the BCS scenarios? Here goes.

Scenario No. 1:

*Rutgers needs to beat Louisville on Dec. 4. That would make the Knights 5-2 in league play.

*Cincinnati needs to lose to Pittsburgh on Saturday and then to Syracuse (we know, that's a stretch and the only part of this equation that is a real long shot). That would make the Bearcats 4-3 in the conference.

*Pittsburgh beats Cincinnati but loses to West Virginia and Connecticut. That puts the Panthers at 4-3.

*West Virginia beats Pittsburgh but loses to Louisville and South Florida. The Mountaineers are then 4-3.

*Connecticut loses to South Florida and then beats Pitt. The Huskies then finish 4-3.

Rutgers then wins its first Big title -- and outright.

Scenario No. 2

* Rutgers beats Louisville to finish 5-2 in the league.

*Cincinnati loses to Pitt and Syracuse to finish 4-3.

*Pitt beats Cincinnati and UConn but loses to West Virginia to finish 5-2.

*West Virginia beats Pitt but loses to Louisville and South Florida to finish 4-3.

*Connecticut beats South Florida but loses to Pitt, which means the best the Huskies can be is 4-3.

That scenario would leave Pittsburgh and Rutgers tied for first place at 5-2 and the Knights, on the strength of their 54-34 romp at Pittsburgh, would earn the Big East title and would be Orange Bowl-bound.

In the case of a three-way and a four-way tie for first place, the teams involved form a mini-conference, with the best record against the other teams breaking the tie. If one team doesn't have a record better than the others -- that is, if teams are still tied -- the team with the highest BCS ranking still goes.

In the case of a five-way tie for first, which could happen, the team ranked highest in the BCS represents the league in the Orange Bowl as the champion.

What if no Big East teams are ranked in the BCS Top 25? Glad you asked -- and we knew astute Rutgers fans would. According to a Big East official, the BCS rankings can be extended upon request beyond the top 25. So the highest ranked Big East team becomes league champion and is BCS bowl-bound.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

These might be fun to root for until they fail, but I am not pinning any amount of hope on them because the math really sucks. Assume each game is a 50% for each team, which in this case is fairly accurate. That means the first scenario has a 2-to-the-10th power chance of occuring (1 in 1000) and the second is 2^11 (1 in 2000).

Smelmooo said...

Oh... you and your... math!

Anonymous said...

There was a 99% chance you would make that comment.