Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
As inexplicable as it may have sounded even three weeks ago, here we are: Mizzou sits atop the SEC East, ready to take on the Auburn Tigers in Atlanta for a shot—yes, a shot—at the national title.
Had you said this two years ago, when the University of Missouri announced it would enter the SEC, you would have been politely laughed out of whatever building you were occupying. If you said this only a year ago, you would have been ejected with much more force.
But make no mistake about it: Mizzou has a legitimate chance to play for a national title in January, should the team win Saturday.
Of course, losses by teams ranked higher than Mizzou would help. Three of the four teams in front of the No. 5 Tigers—Florida State, Ohio State, and Auburn—are playing this weekend. Alabama is currently ranked ahead of Mizzou; without playing in the SEC Championship, though, a win for Mizzou against the only team to beat the Crimson Tide would almost certainly vault the Tigers in front of them.
Two of the top-ranked teams, No. 1 Florida State and No. 2 Ohio State, are undefeated and playing in conference championships. Florida State is a four-touchdown favorite over Duke. In other words, unless Mike Krzyzewski is on the sideline, the Blue Devils are a long shot. Ohio State has a much more difficult contest against No. 10 Michigan State, the most difficult opponent the team will have faced all season. Naturally, should both FSU and OSU win their conferences, the odds of Mizzou playing in Pasadena become slimmer.
But an SEC champion—even one with a loss—leapfrogging other teams wouldn't be unprecedented. In 2007, two-loss SEC Champion LSU found itself in the title game after losing its last regular-season game to unranked Arkansas. Ironically, Ohio State’s Urban Meyer coached a Florida team in the national championship that pummeled the Buckeyes, when many believed fellow one-loss Michigan deserved the shot.
Would a one-loss SEC champion, whose schedule is more difficult in a conference that's produced the last six national champions, have a stronger resume than an undefeated team from a historically significant but currently weak conference?
It may be possible, depending on the quality of those wins and the effect those victories have on the voting members of the BCS calculations. Say Ohio State barely squeaks out a victory against Michigan State, and Mizzou trounces Auburn convincingly. One could see a voter deeming a team that played a more difficult slate, beat more ranked opponents, and whose only loss came in overtime against a ranked team to be more deserving than a team who won a conference in which only half the teams are bowl eligible.
It is possible. Crazier things have happened. Just ask Alabama's Nick Saban and his field-goal unit.
All of these far-fetched particularities will be sorted out on the field Saturday, then by computers on Sunday.
Consider how far Mizzou has come to get here. Last year, the team only won two conference games and didn't qualify for a bowl game, a rarity in the Gary Pinkel era. In the meantime, fellow Big XII defector Texas A&M and Johnny Manziel were the belles of the ball in the tougher SEC West. Now, A&M finds itself with four losses, the last of which came in Columbia last week.
Things in the SEC East are definitely looking up for the Tigers. While Florida and Georgia have the clout to retain noteworthy draft classes and both South Carolina and Vanderbilt play at a high caliber, the division continues to be far easier than the SEC West, with stalwarts like Alabama, LSU, and Auburn.
A winning season, with a shot at a national title, should also help garner recruits. Mizzou will retain many of this year's starters, and quarterback Maty Mauk—who received plenty of playing time while starter James Franklin was injured earlier in the season—is poised to take over next year. Hopefully, that consistency will help attract some of the nation’s top recruits.
Mizzou’s spot in the SEC—where conference championships have often served as play-in games for a national title—should also be advantageous for next year's four-team playoff system.
Regardless of the outcome Saturday, Mizzou will be in a far better position than it was at the beginning of this season.
