Looks like an all-SEC championship game

And so it's come down to this.

Third-ranked Arkansas is at No. 1 Louisiana State. Maybe all of the upsets are out of the way. Or it could be a repeat of 2007, when two-loss LSU wound up getting into the national-title game after every contender took a late dive (including LSU).

That doesn't figure to happen this time, though some form of chaos could still ensue if certain things do go down. And one of them obviously would be an Arkansas win on Friday.

Should that occur, and should No. 2 Alabama get payback at Auburn for last year's implosion, there would be a three-way tie in the SEC West. And it would come down to the seventh tiebreaker, which in this case is your BCS standings. Who do you think will end up where in that scenario?

Arkansas lost by 24 at Alabama in late September and LSU won by three at Alabama in overtime earlier this month. November road wins are never a bad trump card. It could all depend on Friday's margin.

Yet that only eliminates the third, or lowest-ranked, team from the equation. After that if the two remaining teams are within five spots of each other, which likely would be the case, it reverts to head-to-head. So who's third is more important than who's first.

Or how about this? Let's say LSU beats Arkansas, but loses presumably a real close one to Georgia in the SEC title game in Atlanta. What does that do? As a voter in the Harris poll, one of two used in the three-pronged BCS formula (along with computer average), I might have a tough time dropping LSU behind Alabama. I'm a body-of-work kind of observer. And LSU's resume, even with a closing blemish to a club that might bring a 10-game winning streak into the Georgia Dome, could still be worthy enough. And neither LSU nor Alabama would be a conference champion.

If LSU and Alabama both win this week, Alabama would actually seem to benefit from not playing in the SEC final, since LSU could only hurt itself while 'Bama would be pretty much locked in.

In the BCS race it doesn't matter whether you finish one or two, only that you're not three.

I'm not big on rematches. Yet I think most would agree that LSU and Alabama have been the two strongest teams. If the objective is to get the best onto the ultimate stage, then it's hard to object if it turns out that way, regardless of how what's left of this oft-bashed elimination process unfolds.

But Stanford, Oklahoma State and Virginia Tech might have a dissenting opinion. Someone usually does.

Mike Kern

McClatchy News Services