BCS Rankings: The Nation's 3 Best Are in the SEC West

When the BCS Rankings are released today, one thing will be certain—the SEC will be vindicated.

After a season in which the SEC was often declared to be having a down year, and in which the Big 12 was claimed to be superior, the newest rankings will feature the top three teams in the country hailing from the SEC West. 

LSU, the No. 1 team in the country, will hold onto its position. Alabama will move up to No. 2 after the current No 2 team, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, lost to the Iowa State Cyclones. No. 6 Arkansas will move up to No 3 after No. 4 Oregon and No. 5 Oklahoma lost.

The SEC also features two other teams who are in the top 15 already and should move up a bit as well in Georgia and South Carolina. 

One thing is pretty evident at this point—at least one team and probably both teams that play for the National Championship will come from the SEC West. Who it is, though, is a bit of a question. 

If the LSU Tigers beat the Arkansas Razorbacks (as they will be favored to), the Tigers will likely to be in the National Championship game, even if they lost the SEC championship game.

While that is unusual, it is not unprecedented. Oklahoma lost their Conference Championship in 2003 but still faced LSU in the BCS Championship.

However, if Arkansas were to upset Tigers chaos will ensue. 

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"The tied team with the highest ranking in the BCS standings following the last weekend of regular-season games shall be the divisional representative in the SEC Championship Game, unless the second of the tied teams is ranked within five-or-fewer places of that highest ranked team," the SEC's tiebreaker says. "In this case, the head-to-head results of the top two ranked tied teams shall determine the representative."

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At that point, the strange thing is that there's a good chance that the team that doesn't play in the SEC Title Game will play in the National Championship game, and in a sense would have an advantage over the team that would win the SEC West, as they wouldn't have to play Georgia for the championship and possibly lose. 

In fact, it could end up being that the two teams that don't play for the SEC Championship would play for the BCS Championship. 

If LSU were to lose to Arkansas then Alabama and Arkansas would be the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the country respectively. One would go to the SEC Championship game. The other would watch. However, it's a distinct possibility that LSU would only drop to No. 3 in a close game. 

There is a chance that Arkansas would jump Alabama in the rankings and LSU would drop to No. 2 and Alabama would drop to No. 3. If that were happen, due to the tie-breaker, Arkansas would go to the SEC Championship.

Then, hypothetically, Arkansas could lose to Georgia in the SEC Championship game, moving LSU and Alabama up the No. 1 and No. 2 team in the nation. Then there'd be an LSU  vs. Alabama rematch that no one wants to see with neither one even playing for the SEC Championship. 

Is there an argument for a playoff in there somewhere?