That game is … Oregon vs. Florida.
Oregon has an easier path to the BCS title game than the Rose Bowl. The Ducks could finish 11-1 but lose the Pac-12 North to Stanford. And Georgia has already clinched the SEC East ahead of Florida.
Let's say USC pulls off the upset against Notre Dame. If Georgia loses to Georgia Tech on Saturday but defeats Alabama next week, and Florida defeats Florida State, Florida is in the BCS title game.
Don't give up, either, on Alabama vs. Oregon. That could still happen should USC beat Notre Dame and Florida State defeat Florida.
•I asked Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott this week how he sees the latest expansion news — Rutgers and Maryland to the Big Ten Conference —impacting the Pac-12.
"I don't," Scott replied.
Well, that's what he says now. The Big Ten's raid on the Big East and Atlantic Coast conferences may set off another chain reaction of realignment. The Big Ten may not stop at 14 teams on its way to 16 and the Big 12, with only 10 schools, may also go shopping to make its league at least a dozen. Things are likely to get vicious and ugly again, only this time the Pac-12 is a content spectator — but for how long?
It was Scott, remember, who envisioned 16-team super conferences and twice made plays to lure Texas and Oklahoma. Can the Pac-12 really sit still if the Big Ten goes to 16? The Pac-12's lucrative television deal makes it easier for the conference to stand pat. Geography also limits the Pac-12's options. League presidents were adamant last year that they did not want to expand beyond 12. Yet this greedy land-grab business never seems to stop.
•Finally, an ode to 86-year-old John Gagliardi, the legendary Division III St. John's (Minn.) coach who announced his retirement this week after 60 seasons in the hut-hut haven he created at Collegeville:
Gagliardi won an all-divisions record 489 games with a "no rules" philosophy that challenged the "Junction Boys" construct that football players had to be treated like boot-camp soldiers. My favorite Gagliardi rule: no practice if there were too many gnats.
"I eliminate the unnecessary," Gagliardi liked to say. "And I think almost everything is unnecessary."
