First of all, lets note this is purely hypothetical.  I am not expecting this to happen, and in fact if you calculated the odds of this I'm sure they'd be so long it would make Ball State's odds against Alabama look big.  That said, we're number 13 right now.  Say we run the table (knock on virtual wood), and everybody above us loses one game.  Do they let us into the MNC?  They can't, no matter how much they want to, pit AL and LSU against each other as they will play each other during the regular season and only one of them can go to the essshhhh eeeee ceeeee champaingship game.  So do you think they would let us in?  I personally don't want to see it happen because either LSU or Rammer Jammer would eat us alive.  I'd much rather go to either another BSC game (say, the sugar or fiesta) or the Chicken-Fil-A/Cotton bowl and have a chance at winning rather than getting trounced in the NC game.