Notre Dame vs. Syracuse may decide who Sooners play

Tyrone Willingham finally gets to coach in a game impacting the national championship.

Notre Dame's second-year coach hasn't been close in his nine years as a head coach at Stanford and South Bend. But it looks like the Notre Dame game against Syracuse on Saturday at the Carrier Dome will have a huge say in who plays Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl.

Southern California will stay at No. 2 and Louisiana State at No. 3 this week but things could become considerably tighter this weekend. Strength of schedule might be the determining factor between the two programs.

LSU plays in the SEC Championship Game against Georgia. USC plays host to Oregon State but the Notre Dame-Stanford game will impact the Trojans strength of schedule that stood at 39 coming into Saturday. LSU was at 61, or .88 behind USC.

Coming into Saturday, LSU trailed USC by 2.15 points overall for the No. 2 spot.

A Notre Dame victory boosts USC's strength of schedule. A Syracuse victory hurts it. That's assuming LSU wins, getting strength of schedule boost itself for beating Georgia.

"If Syracuse wins, USC needs a lot of help," BCS expert Jerry Palm said Sunday morning. "It's too early to say they need a miracle."

While the numbers might fluctuate before the official BCS rankings come out Monday evening, its clear that the Tigers aren't out of it. The other key component seems to be the computers. Palm is projecting that if Notre Dame wins, USC will stay ahead of LSU in the Colley Matrix. If not, LSU tops USC in the Colley. It could be the difference in the Tigers playing for the national championship.

"If Notre Dame wins, LSU will have to lead in six computers and get a quality win bonus," Palm said. "If Syracuse wins, LSU may not need the quality win bonus at all."

But the Tigers will have to win, regardless. LSU already is getting .04 credit for beating Georgia earlier this season. Per BCS rules, a team cannot get a double quality win bonus for beating a team twice in a season. That means LSU is in the weird situation of possibly hurting itself with a blowout of Georgia.

For Sugar Bowl purposes, it wants to win but in a close game so that Georgia remains in the final top 10 of the BCS rankings. A similar situation played out two years ago when TCU beat Southern Miss allowing Nebraska to hold onto the No. 2 BCS spot by .05 of a point and play for the national championship despite not even winning the Big 12 North Division.

Oklahoma loses to Kansas State in the Big 12 championship. There is the possibility that Oklahoma could remain in the top two and still play for the national championship. If not then LSU and USC, if both win Saturday, could move into the 1-2 slots.

If Oklahoma and USC win and LSU loses to Georgia, then it's for sure Oklahoma-USC.

If Oklahoma wins and both LSU and USC lose, then it's most likely Michigan getting into the Sugar Bowl against the Sooners.

If Oklahoma, LSU and USC lose, Oklahoma is still No. 1 in the BCS. Then you're back to fight for No. 2 between Michigan and Georgia.

But right now, the hottest topic of BCS conversation is the LSU-USC situation. It isn't going away until Saturday night.

If LSU and USC both win Saturday, somebody is going to get the shaft. I truly believe that either one has a decent shot at beating Oklahoma, but only one will get the chance. Another reason to junk the BcS computers and get major college football a real playoff.

"If LSU and USC both win Saturday, somebody is going to get the shaft. I truly believe that either one has a decent shot at beating Oklahoma . . . . "

With all due respect, neither one of these teams has any remote chance of beating the Okies. USC has enough better athletes to match up with the Sooners but OU will beat either one of them.

Hope for LSU to get the Sugar Bowl bid and get blown out by OU--the Pac10 withdraws from the BCS and we get some form of playoff.

With all due respect, neither one of these teams has any remote chance of beating the Okies. USC has enough better athletes to match up with the Sooners but OU will beat either one of them.

The Jets couldn't beat the Colts in the Super Bowl either. Nor could Miami beat Nebraska in the '84 Orange Bowl. NC State and Villanova had no chance against Houston and Georgetown in the NCAA Finals. Alabama couldn't win against a clearly superior Miami team in '92, nor could an inferior Ohio State knock off those same Hurricanes last season. Shall I go on?

"neither one of these teams has any remote chance of beating the Okies..."

Let's see OK beat Alabama 20-13, LSU beat Alabama 24-3.

LSU has the #1 defense against the score, Oklahoma is #3.

Oklahoma has the #1 scoring offense, LSU is #14.

Oklahoma is 12-0, LSU is 11-1.

Sugar Bowl is in Louisiana.

I can't see how you can say LSU has no chance.

"The Jets couldn't beat the Colts in the Super Bowl either. Nor could Miami beat Nebraska in the '84 Orange Bowl. NC State and Villanova had no chance against Houston and Georgetown in the NCAA Finals. Alabama couldn't win against a clearly superior Miami team in '92, nor could an inferior Ohio State knock off those same Hurricanes last season. Shall I go on?"

I don't think any of those is really comparable and I think both of us could see the reason why the favorites in those games were favored and why it was not unreasonable to take the points--I did in a three of them (Ohio State last year; Alabama in 92; and Namaith). I am a Washington Husky fan; but I think this OU team would be very difficult to beat.

" I can't see how you can say LSU has no chance." And I suppose if you have to pick a possible victim in a relatively hopeless task, the home team may have something going for it. Although I think SC has better personel to match up against OU.

How is the situation incomparable? Nebraska in '83-84 was even more impressive than this Oklahoma bunch in rolling through the regular season unbeaten. The NFL had not even been seriously challenged by the AFL in the first two Super Bowls before Namath and the Jets rocked their world. Georgetown was coming off a previous national title, and had stormed through the NCAA tournament like a hot knife through butter before a 10 loss team that had been wiped out by the Hoyas during the regular season beat them in the finals. Remember the UNLV team that went undefeated through all of 1990-91 and was going to roll over Duke in the Final Four?

JFK asked, "Why does Rice play Texas?"

The point is, for all the pronouncements that Oklahoma is unbeatable, and that may well be true, on paper. But the real games are decided on the field, or court, where anything can happen. Don't cut USC, or LSU, short.

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