Week 12 Conference Championship Analysis
Posted by deaconcat08 on November 18, 2012
For the fourth-straight year, I will be publishing weekly November columns analyzing the conference championship races. Bold teams have already clinched their division or conference. Italicized teams are my predicted champions of their respective conferences/divisions at this point in time. This list is updated through all week 12 games.
ACC Atlantic- Florida State
ACC Coastal- Miami-FL (As long as the Hurricanes take care of Duke next weekend, they will play against in-state rival Florida State in the ACC Title Game. A Canes loss will send Georgia Tech there)
Big 12- Kansas State (Even though the Wildcats national title hopes were dashed in Waco, K-State can still win the Big 12 with a victory over Texas. Another Wildcat loss would put Oklahoma in the driver seat and allow them to clinch if they can beat both Oklahoma State and TCU. If K-State and Oklahoma both lose, then we could have a wild four-way tie between the Sooners, Wildcats, Texas, and Oklahoma State.)
SEC East- Georgia
SEC West- Alabama (The Tide need to win the Iron Bowl to clinch the division. Otherwise, we’ll likely have a wild three-way tie between the Tide, LSU, and Texas A & M.)
Big East- Rutgers (With the Scarlet Knights victory over Cincinnati, the Big East title will come down to a head to head matchup between Louisville and Rutgers, assuming the Cards get by UConn next weekend. I got to give the Knights the slight edge over my preseason conference title pick because they’re playing at home.)
Big Ten Legends- Nebraska (The Huskers and Wolverines are tied atop the Legends division standings, but Nebraska owns the tiebreaker over Michigan and has the easier final game next weekend at Iowa.)
Big Ten Leaders-Wisconsin
Pac-12 North- Stanford (No division race has ever been turned upside down in a matter of hours quite like this one. Before Saturday night, the Ducks were strolling into the Pac-12 title game. Now, Oregon not only needs to beat Oregon State to keep their Pac-12 title hopes alive but they also need the Bruins to pull off a home upset over Stanford. I think the Ducks beat the Beavers but I expect the Cardinal to squeak by the Bruins.)
Pac-12 South- UCLA
Mountain West- San Diego State/Fresno State/Boise State (There is a three-way tie atop the MWC standings between Fresno State, San Diego State, and Boise. All three teams should win out from this point, which would create a gridlock situation, as the MWC has no established tiebreaker rules.)
C-USA East- Central Florida (The Knights’ loss to Tulsa makes this race a little more interesting, but UCF will still clinch the division crown with either a win over UAB next weekend or an ECU loss to Marshall.)
C-USA West- Tulsa
MAC East- Kent State (The Cinderella story of the year in college football is Kent State, and the Golden Flashes were one of my preseason surprises teams!!?)
MAC West- Northern Illinois
Sun Belt- Arkansas State (Leave it to the Sun Belt to have the wildest and most convoluted conference title race in the entire county. If both MTSU beats Troy next Saturday, then the Blue Raiders and the Red Wolves of Arkansas State will meet in a de facto conference championship game on Saturday December 1st in Jonesboro, AR. Meanwhile, if MTSU loses to Troy and then beats Arkansas State, then things get complicated again, as UL-Lafayette and UL-Monroe could both get thrown back in the mix.)
WAC- Utah State