It’s pretty simple for Alabama: Win out, and the Crimson Tide will get a chance to play for their third national championship in the past four years.
The latest BCS standings were released Sunday night, and Alabama maintained a comfortable lead in the No. 1 spot. The Crimson Tide routed previously unbeaten Mississippi State 38-7 on Saturday at home and will get their toughest road test of the season this coming weekend at LSU.
Alabama is one of four unbeaten teams occupying the top four spots in this week’s BCS standings. Kansas State moved to No. 2, with Notre Dame checking in at No. 3 and Oregon at No. 4.
The Crimson Tide don’t need to worry about what happens below them or who loses and who doesn’t. They just need to keep winning, because they’re not going to be passed in either of the two human polls if they’re sitting there at 13-0 following the SEC championship game.
LSU is the highest one-loss team this week in the BCS standings. The Tigers moved up a spot to No. 5 and could put themselves in prime position with a win over Alabama this weekend in Baton Rouge.
At that point, LSU would need two of the remaining three unbeaten teams ahead of it (Kansas State, Notre Dame and Oregon) to lose. If that happens and LSU wins out, the Tigers would be poised to grab one of those top two spots in the final BCS standings.
Georgia, on the heels of its 17-9 win over Florida, moved up four spots to No. 6. The Bulldogs’ only loss was a bad one. They were pummeled 35-7 by South Carolina in September. Even so, they’re not out of the national championship hunt.
They also need two of the three unbeaten teams in front of them to lose, and if they could knock off an unbeaten and No. 1 Alabama in the SEC championship game, that might be enough to get them into the national title game.
It probably needs to be Alabama. A win over a one-loss LSU team in the SEC championship game probably wouldn’t be enough to sway the voters in the two polls.
Florida, which is No. 7 this week, also has an outside chance. The Gators need to win out, have Georgia stumble in one of its next two SEC games and then beat Alabama in the SEC championship game and hope there’s no more than one unbeaten team remaining.