James writes “Even better for chaos would be for Georgia to win the SEC……….. now how would that work out? Could you put one loss Alabama or LSU back in……oh the possibilities are just great for the ultimate chaos.” Ah yes, it would be fascinating if Alabama/LSU both had one loss but neither ended up winning the SEC. Do you put a one loss, dominant team in the National Championship game if they don’t win their conference? So, here’s the situation. First, Alabama and LSU win all their remaining regular season games after the Tuscaloosa Tussle. Second, the winner of the Alabama LSU game loses to Georgia in the SEC championship game. Third, every other team has at least one loss. The Power Rank gives this a 0.67% probability, so it’s not that likely. Even if the higher ranked South Carolina wins the SEC championship game, the likelihood only goes up to 0.77%.
Last week, we calculated the probability that Boise State ends the season as the only undefeated team. Unfortunately, we made an error since we assumed the remaining undefeated teams did not play each other. Of course, this isn’t true, as Kansas State faces Oklahoma State while Alabama and LSU will command everyone’s attention next Saturday. When we work out the likelihood that Alabama and LSU both end the season with at least one loss, we get 44.2%, most likely a number higher than most people expect. With the correct math, Boise State has a 9.1% chance of being the only undefeated team at the end of the season. It’s still about the 1 in 10 chance we stated previously.
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