Saturday, December 3, 2011

Does Houston's loss help Oklahoma State's chances of getting to BCS title game?

When I wrote an analysis of Oklahoma State's chances of getting to the BCS title game, I failed to mention anything about what a Houston loss would do to the scenarios.  That was a mistake on my part as you'll see below.

As I wrote before, the key challenge for Oklahoma State is going to be the polls where they are presently 5th in each poll.  Thus the analysis focused on an LSU loss and Virginia Tech loss, the two teams ahead of them in the polls.

However, Houston was #6 in the polls right behind Oklahoma State and so it is likely that a number of poll voters had Houston ahead of Oklahoma State.  How many?

Unfortunately, we don't have visibility into the Harris and Coaches polls so we can't say for sure.  But we do have visibility into the AP poll and there, 11 of the 60 voters had Houston ahead of Oklahoma State.  If roughly 20% of the Harris and Coaches poll voters also have them ahead, that alone is at least 34 points Oklahoma State will pick up of the 508 I calculated they need.

So, they still need a big win over OU to sway voters, plus they need a Virginia Tech loss and an LSU loss wouldn't hurt, especially if it is a convincing loss.  Houston has done one part, a second part is in progress with LSU down 10-0, and the other 2 parts happen later tonight.

It will be fun to watch.

p.s. As I write this, LSU just scored a touchdown and that game is closer ...

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