Missing the BCS National Championship? How likely is it?

Shortly, the freshly minted BCS rankings will be released.  Alabama is a lock for #1, and #2 will most probably be Oregon (or maybe Florida State).  Meanwhile, 5 other undefeated BCS conference teams (Ohio State, Missouri, Baylor, Miami, and Texas Tech) will be stuck looking up at the 3 clear favorites, wondering whether an undefeated season will be enough for a shot at the title.  With the end of the regular season just 7 short weeks away, everyone from ESPN to the Bleacher Report will be crafting their doomsday scenarios where 3, 4, or 5 teams finish unbeaten.  They’ll talk about style points and weak schedules and SEC supremacy.  They’ll debate whether a 1-loss Alabama deserved to get in over an undefeated Texas Tech.  But how likely is it that we’ll have much of a controversy at all?

***Opinion disclaimer: the only controversies worth talking about are ones in which one undefeated team is picked over another.  If you can’t win all your games, and you don’t play in a power conference (ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12, SEC), you don’t have an absolute right to play in the title game.  One 1-loss team getting picked over another isn't controversial, unless it’s 2011 and a team that lost its division gets a rematch against a team to which it already lost.***

As stated before, there are currently 8 undefeated teams from power conferences (sorry, Northern Illinois and Fresno State).  This may seem like a lot, but how does it compare with previous years?  Following is a yearly list of how many teams from power conferences were undefeated when the initial BCS rankings were released (Big East counts as a power conference historically).

1998: 6 teams
1999: 5 teams
2000: 4 teams
2001: 7 teams
2002: 7 teams
2003: 3 teams
2004: 5 teams
2005: 7 teams
2006: 6 teams
2007: 5 teams
2008: 5 teams
2009: 5 teams
2010: 7 teams
2011: 8 teams
2012: 10 teams + ineligible Ohio State

Median: 6        Mean: 6

So the 8 undefeated teams this year constitute an unusually high count, but not by a wide margin.  It may seem, then, that we’re more likely to see a multiple-undefeated-team controversy this season.  In a way, yes, but we’re overlooking something.  In each year of the BCS, the undefeated field was culled by some of the teams playing each other.  For example, upcoming in this season, Alabama plays Missouri, Baylor plays Texas Tech, and Florida State plays Miami.  This means, that at worst, we’ll have 5 undefeated BCS contenders at season’s end.  How does this adjusted number compare to the worst-case scenarios from previous years?

1998: 5 teams
1999: 5 teams
2000: 3 teams
2001: 4 teams
2002: 6 teams
2003: 2 teams
2004: 5 teams
2005: 4 teams
2006: 3 teams
2007: 5 teams
2008: 3 teams
2009: 4 teams
2010: 4 teams
2011: 5 teams
2012: 5 teams + ineligible Ohio State

Median: 4        Mean: 4.2

We’re still at the higher end, but not abnormally so.

The last list shows that over the course of the BCS, we've had the potential for a multiple-undefeated-team controversy every single season except 2003 (where, oddly, the BCS ended up having the greatest controversy, though for a different reason).  How many times, then, have we seen greater than two undefeated teams at season’s end?

Twice: in 2004 (USC vs. Oklahoma, Auburn left out), and in 2009, (Alabama vs. Texas, Cincinnati left out).

In fact, in 6 years (1998, 2000, 2001, 2006, 2011, 2012), only one team finished undefeated, and in another 3 years (2003, 2007, 2008), NO teams finished undefeated.  The teams that did not make it through unscathed lost an average of 1.9 games each.

Were we ever close to another controversy?  Notable close calls came in 1999 (Florida State and Virginia Tech went undefeated, Kansas State had 1 loss), 2002 (Miami and Ohio State went undefeated, Georgia had 1 loss), and 2010 (Oregon and Auburn went undefeated, Michigan State had 1 loss).  It’s interesting to note that all of these potential controversies were resolved by mid-November.

But, you might inquire, the teams who averted disaster by losing must have lost to some quality opponents, and look at the cupcake schedule Ohio State, Baylor, Miami, etc, has remaining!  However, a glance the past 15 seasons reveals that, of the 70 previously undefeated teams who lost down the stretch:

15 of them lost to opponents with losing or .500 records
32 more lost to opponents with fewer than 10 wins
6 more lost to other teams that were undefeated when the initial BCS rankings were released

Only 17 teams had to be taken down by an elite opponent that wasn't also in the BCS title hunt.

The upshot: don’t worry too much if you’re a Buckeye, or Bear, or Hurricane fan.  Chances are (1) your undefeated team won’t get shut out of the BCS championship, and (2) you’ll probably have 2 losses by that point anyway.