WVU Football: Mountaineers' BCS Climb Almost Complete

I find it hard to believe I'm writing this, but here goes...

There are a multiple scenarios that can land WVU in the BCS title game.

The most obvious—and least likely—is for both LSU and Kansas to lose.

Regardless of what Missouri does, that should earn WVU a ticket to New Orleans.

LSU must play Arkansas on Saturday, and then probably either Georgia or Tennessee in the SEC title game. I'd prefer Georgia, as they're playing better football right now.

A less unlikely scenario is for EITHER LSU or Kansas to go down.

That's only asking for one loss in four games—those odds aren't bad.

That may not get the job done, though, as Missouri is close enough to WVU to potentially vault over the Mountaineers.

And don't forget about Arizona State. The conventional wisdom is that if the Sun Devils win out, they could jump WVU.

Why?

Because Arizona State's loss to Oregon is better than WVU's loss to South Florida, and Arizona State's best win—over Southern Cal—would be better than WVU's best win—over Cincinnati, UConn, or Rutgers.

(One caveat: No. 9 Oregon still has two games left to play, at UCLA and home against Oregon State. If you saw Ryan Leaf's little bro play last week, you know it's quite possible for the Ducks to lose both games...dropping them in the rankings, maybe even past No. 23 South Florida. So much for that quality loss.)

The best-case scenario for WVU looks like this:

- Remove LSU from the equation. The Tigers win out, which to me seems pretty likely...meaning there's only one open spot in the title game.

- On Thursday, Southern Cal beats Arizona State, eliminating the Sun Devils.

- On Saturday afternoon, WVU beats UConn. Convincingly would help.

- On Saturday night, Mizzou beats Kansas, giving the KU one loss. Based on their strength of schedule, this eliminates the Jayhawks.

- In Sunday's BCS poll, LSU stays at No. 1, Mizzou vaults over WVU to No. 2, and WVU stays at No. 3.

But don't worry.

On the following Saturday, Mizzou loses to lower-ranked Texas or Oklahoma in the Big 12 title game. That gives Mizzou two losses and eliminates them.

WVU rises to No. 2...and is set to play LSU in the BCS title game.

If all this seems like too much to imagine, consider this:

Over the span of three days last week, the No. 2 team—Oregon—and the No. 5 team—Oklahoma—both lost to unranked opponents.

It's the 2007 college football season. Anything can happen.