The best conference with the best race in college football faced a sticky situation last week. How was it resolved? Through the BCS, of course.

Those boys in the Southeastern Conference, they’re good soldiers. Stay the party line, spew the party garbage. A quick recap: The SEC’s tiebreaker formula — the last straw being a vote of conference athletic directors if six on-field tiebreakers fail — was exposed last week for what it is: a system Pop Warner teams wouldn’t use.

So instead of having, uh, compromised athletic directors vote on who should play in the SEC championship game, the league office decided to pimp for the BCS. In the sticky East Division, the team with the best BCS number will advance to the league title game if Florida, Georgia and Tennessee finish in a three-way tie.

The league office hailed this decision as a fair and equitable way to determine the East champ, a way to keep personal bias — and the private vote invariably becoming public — out of the process and to serve the best interest of the teams involved.

In reality, it was instituted for the best interest of LSU.

“We had to protect them,” says one league source.

Here’s why: Should the one-loss Tigers win out and enter the championship game at 11-1, they would need the best possible matchup to potentially jump other one-loss teams and play in the Sugar Bowl.

Playing Georgia, a team it beat earlier in the season, wouldn’t help because the BCS formula allows only one quality win over the same team — a stipulation preventing teams that play in conferences with championship games from earning an unfair advantage. Georgia likely would have been the team voted into the SEC title game by the ADs because it was ranked highest in the human polls. Should all three teams win out, Georgia still would be the highest ranked in the BCS poll, but the SEC covered that, too, including in its decision that any team within five BCS spots of the top team in the East standings will be selected if it has a head-to-head victory over the top team. The stipulation was made to allow Florida, the league’s hottest squad, an opportunity to move up in the polls and be selected for the title game should it win out. An LSU victory over Florida in the title game, then, would count as a quality win.

There’s one other problem: Ole Miss.

The Rebels are the league’s only unbeaten team and plays host to LSU Nov. 22. If Ole Miss wins, it wins the West. But even if the Rebels lose, they still can make the championship game if LSU loses to Arkansas Nov. 29.

The SEC isn’t the only confusing conference race. A look at the remaining BCS leagues:

• Big 12: The South Division is relatively simple. If top-ranked Oklahoma beats bottom feeder Baylor today, it wins the division and advances to the league championship game — no matter what it does in the regular-season finale at Texas Tech. The North Division, on the other hand, is dicey. Either Kansas State and Nebraska can win the division by winning its final two games. Missouri, despite its loss to Colorado last week, still is alive. The Tigers must beat Texas A&M and Kansas State and hope Nebraska loses to K-State. Then again, does any of the North madness really matter? The prize for winning the division is a date with Oklahoma. Good luck, fellas.
• Big Ten: Ohio State and Michigan control their destinies; win out and win the league. With wins over top-10 teams Purdue and Michigan, Ohio State might get enough of a bump to reach the Sugar Bowl. Purdue still can win or share the league title, but it must win out over Ohio State and Indiana. The Boilers would win the league if Michigan loses to Northwestern and Ohio State, and they would force a three-way tie if Michigan loses to Ohio State.
• Pac-10: For Southern California, it’s win out, win the Pac-10, and win a spot in the Sugar Bowl if Ohio State doesn’t slip past the Trojans. USC and Washington State have one league loss each, but USC holds the tiebreaker with a win over the Cougars. Washington State can get to the Rose Bowl, but it must beat Arizona State and Washington and get a USC loss to Arizona, UCLA or Oregon State. UCLA and Oregon State, meanwhile, need a combination of multiple losses to get to the title.
• Big East: Pittsburgh, the league’s only unbeaten team, has games remaining against West Virginia, Temple and Miami. If it wins out, it wins the league. Miami also controls its destiny, with games against Rutgers, Syracuse and Pitt. If Miami loses, West Virginia would win the conference by winning out against Pitt, Temple and Syracuse. Virginia Tech can gain a share of the title if multiple teams, including Miami, have two league losses, which isn’t likely.
• ACC: If N.C. State becomes the first non-Florida team since Auburn (1983-85) to beat Florida State three consecutive seasons and then beats Maryland in the season finale, it will get a share of the ACC title. Problem is, the Wolfpack hasn’t beaten Maryland since 1999. But there is serious incentive: If the Pack wins out and FSU loses to Florida in the season finale, N.C. State could get the league’s BCS bid — the bowl’s choice — to prevent a potential bowl rematch of a regular-season game.