Looking back at the chaos of the 2007 college football season

The Final Setting of the Postseason Calendar

After three months of football, the 11 conferences in the Football Bowl Subdivision had determined their respective champions. The six automatic-qualifying schools guaranteed a berth in one of the BCS bowl games were Ohio State (Big Ten), USC (Pac-10), LSU (SEC), Virginia Tech (ACC), Oklahoma (Big 12), and West Virginia (Big East).

In the five non-AQ conferences, Hawaii had run the table as the only team to finish the 2007 regular season undefeated. Kansas joined Ohio State as the only other team with just one loss on its record. Beyond them, a bunch of imperfect two-loss teams were vying to nab one of the lucrative major bowl spots.

A year after winning the national championship as a freshman, Florida’s Tim Tebow won the Heisman Trophy. Tebow became the first sophomore to win the Heisman after racking up 55 touchdowns and over 4000 total yards. But with three losses on their record, the Gators had no shot at getting back into the title game in 2007. Instead, they would have to settle for a Citrus Bowl berth against Michigan.

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Who would play in the BCS Championship Game?

Thus the question became who would join the Buckeyes in New Orleans to play for the crystal pigskin. One of the two spots seemed fairly well settled, after Ohio State took over the No. 1 spot in the BCS standings. Having finished their season two weeks earlier against Michigan, the Buckeyes climbed in the polls by default. They benefitted from their inaction to rise back up to top-dog status. Ohio State was the only major-conference champion to finish the 2007 season with an 11-1 record.

The second position was tougher to determine. Les Miles set up a spirited lobbying campaign to get the SEC champs back into the No. 2 spot. He noted effectively that LSU was the only two-loss team that hadn’t lost in regulation. Had the Tigers played prior to 1996, they would have been an 11-0-2 team with an undefeated record.

Virginia Tech had the disadvantage of losing to LSU in a head-to-head matchup in September. West Virginia had lost to sub-.500 Pittsburgh, while USC had lost to sub-.500 Stanford. Oklahoma fell to 6-6 Colorado.

Thus the Tigers survived two separate losses that knocked them out of contention to climb back up to No. 2 for a third time. Among the other BCS games, the Hokies were paired against No. 8 Kansas in the Orange Bowl. West Virginia and Oklahoma were matched against one another in the Fiesta Bowl. USC was positioned in the Pac-10’s traditional Rose Bowl assignation against No. 13 Illinois. And Hawaii made a BCS bowl, paired up with No. 5 Georgia in the Sugar Bowl.