Often the case during the BCS era, a single slip-up during the regular season may have squandered your team’s realistic national title hopes, but didn’t deflate a possible high-profile bowl berth if they could bounce back and win out.

A similar slim margin for error exists in the SEC which has proven to be college football’s toughest and most competitive league over the last decade.

Conventional wisdom tells us two league losses in eight games keeps you inside the Top 25, but damages opportunities at controlling your own destiny down the stretch. A 7-1 finish on the other hand almost always seals a trip to Atlanta — at least in the Eastern Division.

A division champion hasn’t lost two or more games in SEC play since 2010 when South Carolina won the East at 5-3 — only the second time that’s happened since the league split into two divisions in 1992 (LSU, 2001). Three times since, the Gamecocks have finished 6-2 against league competition, but that hasn’t been good enough in a Missouri-dominated East.

Things have gotten so wacky in the East over that span that South Carolina beat all six divisional rivals during the 2011campaign, but failed to reach the title game after losing both cross-divisional games to Auburn and Arkansas. It sparked some whining from Steve Spurrier, but his point was moot.

Win 7 out of 8 in the East and you’re golden.

Only one Eastern Division champion has finished 8-0 in the SEC over the last decade. Considering the division’s wide-open against this fall, I wouldn’t expect anything different and a 7-1 record, perhaps even 6-2, would stamp a ticket to the Georgia Dome.

The West is a different monster.

Last fall, all seven teams were ranked inside the Top 25 at one point — a new record. On a college basketball RPI scale, every team in the division would have a strength of schedule ranked inside the Top 50 nationally, treacherous slates that so often squash once-stellar seasons (see Ole Miss, Mississippi State in 2014).

Alabama or Auburn has won the West every year but one since 2008, often leading to a berth in the national championship game. That’s how it is for battle-tested football teams who make it through the journey relatively unscathed with one loss or fewer.

The last time the West had a two-loss champion came in 2007 when LSU overcame a pair of triple-overtime defeats to win the national championship. It was a perfect storm turn of events for the Tigers who entered the BCS title game as the nation’s second-ranked team after Oklahoma upended No. 1 Mizzou in the Big 12 Championship Game to give LSU a boost in the rankings.

Based on the division’s perceived top-to-bottom strength, it could happen this season.

If it does, that’s bad news for the SEC’s College Football Playoff hopes unless Georgia, Tennessee or Missouri finishes as a one-loss league champion.