The Alabama Crimson Tide had little trouble with the Auburn Tigers Saturday afternoon in the 2011 Iron Bowl and all but wrapped up their bid for the 2011 BCS National Championship Game. The Tide rode another dominant performance from Trent Richardson to a 42-14 victory. Richardson rushed 27 times for 203 yards in the effort. QB AJ McCarron put together a strong performance as well, completing 18 of 23 passes for 184 yards and three touchdowns.
Although LSU still has to play in the SEC title game and Oklahoma State faces a potential resume-booster in Oklahoma, the BCS national championship game is just about set. Even if LSU loses to Georgia in the conference championship game, they are so far ahead of everybody in the BCS that I would be shocked if they even dropped out of the number one position. LSU currently has a perfect score and given that they defeated Alabama earlier in the season, they likely remain number one even with a loss.
This all but eliminates Stanford's last desperate shot at getting into the national title game. Although Stanford cannot win the Pac-12, they had a shot at the national title game with losses from Alabama, Oklahoma State, Arkansas and Virginia Tech. They got the Arkansas loss, but that was it. Sunday will likely make that official. Stanford can still get into a BCS bowl as an at-large candidate, but they need to handle their business Sunday night against Notre Dame.