Hypothetical: 4-9 and a Rose Bowl berth

Submitted by Brhino on

The following is inspired by the faint possibility of a 7-6 UCLA team playing in the Rose Bowl (oops, Oregon just scored another touchdown...).

 

Suppose a Big Ten team (Let's say Indiana just for fun) starts the season with four straight non-conference losses.  Also suppose that Indiana goes 3-5 in conference play but still wins the Leaders division.  This is not impossible - if every Leaders team loses every game against the Legends division, and each team goes either 3-2 or 2-3 in intra-Leaders games, then the division winner will be whichever 3-2 team wins the tiebreaker.

That would make Indiana 3-9 after the regular season but still playing in the championship game.  Suppose they win.  Their record goes to 4-9, and as the winner of the Big Ten championship game, they are awarded a spot in the Rose Bowl.

Or are they?  They don't have six wins, so they're not even bowl eligible.  So what happens?

UMGooch

December 3rd, 2011 at 12:17 PM ^

 

Yes, currently (should be) studying for a statistical mechanics final. Anything is possible, however some events are extremely unlikely. I wonder what is more complicated: BCS computer calculations or Monte Carlo simulations... ah, definitely BCS computers.