Q. When will the first BCS standings be released? What’s the rest of the release schedule?

A. The first BCS standings will be released on the Sunday following Week Seven action, Oct. 16.

The BCS will then release rankings for the rest of the season as follows:

BCS Week Two: Oct. 23
BCS Week Three: Oct. 30
BCS Week Four: Nov. 6
BCS Week Five: Nov. 13
BCS Week Six: Nov. 20
BCS Week Seven: Nov. 27
Final BCS Standings: Dec. 4

BCS Bowl pairings will also be released Dec. 4.

Q. What teams switched conferences this season?

A. The following five teams changed conference affiliation before the start of the 2011-12 college football season:

Colorado Buffaloes — Big 12 to Pac-12
Boise State Broncos — Western Athletic Conference to Mountain West Conference
Nebraska Cornhuskers — Big 12 to Big Ten
Utah Utes — Mountain West Conference to Pac-12
BYU Cougars — Mountain West Conference to FBS Independent

Q. What is the order in which the BCS bowls select participants?

A. For the 2011-12 college football season, the BCS bowls will fill their vacant spots once the national championship game has been filled and the Rose, Fiesta and Orange Bowl fill their respective host contracts. The bowls will select in this order:

Fiesta Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl

You can find more information about the BCS bowl selection process at the BCS Bowls page.

Q. What are the “automatically qualifying” BCS conferences?

A. There are six AQ BCS conferences, thus named because the champions of those conferences are automatically awarded BCS bowl bids. The six conferences are the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Big Ten, Big 12, Big East, Pac-12 and Southeastern Conference (SEC).

Q. What are the “non-automatically qualifying” BCS conferences?

A. There are five non-AQ conferences, named as such because their champions do not automatically qualify for BCS bowl bids. However, one champion from the non-BCS conferences will qualify for a BCS bowl bid if they are ranked in the top 12 in the final BCS standings, or if a champion from a non-BCS conference is ranked higher than any BCS conference champion ranked among the top 16.

The five non-BCS conferences are the Conference USA (C-USA), the Mountain West Conference (MWC), the Sun Belt Conference, the Mid-American Conference (MAC), and the Western Athletic Conferences (WAC).

Q. When are the conference championship games?

A. Conference championship games for the Pac-12, ACC, SEC, Big Ten, MAC and C-USA will be held on Saturday, Dec. 3, the last weekend of the season.

Q. Who is eligible for postseason play?

A. Members of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) will be eligible for postseason play if they finish the season with a winning percentage above .500. If there are not enough bowl-eligible teams, or a conference cannot completely fill its bowl contracts, then teams which finish at .500 will be eligible as well.

For the 2011 season, the University of Southern California will not be eligible for postseason play due to sanctions handed down to the university by the NCAA because of NCAA infractions.

Q. What schools are currently under investigation by the NCAA?

A. BCS Know How is keeping track of the ever-growing list of ongoing investigations that the NCAA is performing right HERE.

Have any other questions? Post them below, and we’ll be sure to update!

Welcome to the final weekend of the 2010 college football regular season!

BCS Know How will be here all weekend guiding you through all the possibilities and projections for the BCS and the non-BCS bowls headed our way in the coming weeks.

Answer some general questions about the BCS and the process this season with the BCS Formula and BCS Bowls pages along with these informative posts to beef up your BCS knowledge:

We’ll be live chatting here on Saturday and Sunday during the day starting at noon to answer any BCS or bowl questions or just as a place to discuss what’s happening around the country. New articles will be posted at the bottom as teams qualify for BCS bowls and other important events occur.

Make sure you’re following @BCSKnowHow for constant updates.

Championship Weekend Updates:

• Auburn and Oregon are on their way to the BCS title game.
• Virginia Tech is on their way to the Orange Bowl with their victory in the ACC Championship Game.
• Connecticut is BCS bowl bound.
• Oklahoma is on their way to the Fiesta Bowl with their victory in the Big 12 title game.

Chat live with us HERE:

The BCS’s executive director Bill Hancock released the list of teams that are still in contention for BCS bowl bids today via press release.

All 27 of the teams are either still in the hunt for automatically qualifying conference titles or at-large bids.

The champions of the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10 and SEC conferences are automatically awarded spots in the BCS.

Another bid is awarded to the highest ranking champion of the non-AQ conferences (given that that team is within the top-12 or ahead of a AQ conference champion and still in the top-18). The non-AQ conferences are the MAC, WAC, MWC, Sun Belt and C-USA.

The following teams are still alive in the six BCS conference races:

ACC: Florida State, North Carolina State, Virginia Tech

Big East: Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, West Virginia

Big Ten: Michigan State, Ohio State, Wisconsin

Big 12: Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M

Pac-10: Oregon, Stanford

SEC: Auburn, South Carolina

Along with these 19 teams, eight teams are being considered by the BCS bowls as at-large contenders: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Boise State, LSU, Nevada, Utah, and TCU.

Utah and Nevada are still alive, but would be eliminated with wins by TCU and Boise State respectively this weekend.

Ladies and gentlemen, Boise State is for real.

That, at least, is what today’s first-week edition of the USA Today Coaches’ Poll tells any close follower of college football.

Enough voters in the poll — which is one-third of the BCS formula — moved the Broncos up that it seems that the Broncos can easily make their way to the top of the BCS when all is said and done in the 2010 season.

Although they did not receive any first-place votes, the Broncos recieved six second-place votes and were no lower than tenth on any of the 59 ballots — enough to leapfrog the underwhelming performance of Texas on Saturday.

Alabama and Ohio State remain a convincing 1-2.

USA Today Coaches’ Poll

Here’s a quick post where I’ll try to answer some pretty common questions about the upcoming season when it comes to the BCS and the season. If you have any other questions that aren’t here ask ‘em in the comments section and I’ll update the page!

Q. When do the first BCS standings come out? What is the rest of the BCS release schedule?

A. The first BCS standings will be released on the Sunday following Week Seven action, October 17th.

The rest of the release schedule is as follows:

BCS Week Two: October 24th
BCS Week Three: October 31st
BCS Week Four: November 7th
BCS Week Five: November 14th
BCS Week Six: November 21st
BCS Week Seven: November 28th
Final BCS Standings: December 5th

The final BCS standings will be released in conjunction with the BCS bowl pairings.

Q. What are the BCS conferences?

A. There are six BCS conferences, thus named because the champions of those conferences are automatically awarded BCS bowl bids. The six conferences are the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Big Ten, Big 12, Big East, Pac-10 and Southeastern Conference (SEC).

Q. What are the non-BCS conferences?

A. There are five non-BCS conferences, named as such because their champions do not automatically qualify for BCS bowl bids. However, one champion from the non-BCS conferences will qualify for a BCS bowl bid if they are ranked in the top 12 in the final BCS standings, or if a champion from a non-BCS conference is ranked higher than any BCS conference champion ranked among the top 16.

The five non-BCS conferences are the Conference USA (C-USA), the Mountain West Conference (MWC), the Sun Belt Conference, the Mid-American Conference (MAC), and the Western Athletic Conferences (WAC).

Q. When is the 2010 Heisman Trophy presentation?

A. The Heisman Trophy Trust will host the 2010 Heisman Trophy presentation on December 11th, 2010. The presentation will be broadcast live by ESPN.

Q. When are the conference championship games?

A. Conference championship games for the Big 12, ACC, SEC, MAC and C-USA will be held on Saturday, December 4th.

Q. What is the new Rose Bowl selection process?

A. As explained HERE the new process is as follows:

The first time the Rose Bowl loses one of its traditional hosts (Big Ten or Pac-10 Champion) to the BCS National Championship Game, and a non-BCS team automatically qualifies for the BCS (as explained above), that non-BCS team will be selected by the Rose Bowl.

Q. Who is eligible for postseason play?

A. Members of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) will be eligible for postseason play if they finish the season with a winning percentage over .500. If there are not enough bowl-eligible teams, then teams which finish at .500 will be eligible as well.

For the 2010 season, the University of Southern California will not be eligible for postseason play due to sanctions handed down to the university by the NCAA because of NCAA infractions.

Q. What schools are currently under investigation by the NCAA?

A. Good news! BCS Know How is already keep track of the ever-growing list of ongoing investigations that the NCAA is performing right HERE.

Let the debate begin.

The first of the major media preseason polls was released this morning, and not surprisingly, the defending national champions are at the top by a convincing margin.

Alabama, who won the BCS National Championship Game in January and topped every postseason ranking, starts the 2010 season just where they left off, at No. 1 in the USA Today Coaches Poll — looking down at the rest of the 119 FBS schools.

The Crimson Tide’s immediate company should also be pretty familiar to the boys from Tuscaloosa, as all of the preseason top five in the Coaches ended the 2009 season among the top five, although in a different order.

Ohio State enters the season with big hopes, and sees that reflected in the Coaches’ Poll, coming in at No. 2.

Usual suspects Florida (No. 3) and Texas (No. 4) are right near the top once again, followed by No. 5 Boise State. The Broncos have never received such high preseason praise, and have some people thinking a national championship run could be in the works.

ACC favorite Virginia Tech and another BCS-buster TCU come in at No. 6 and No. 7 respectively — separated by a mere point.

Two Big 12 teams — Oklahoma and Nebraska — take the next two spots, forecasting another strong year out of the Big 12 in its final year of existence.

The Iowa Hawkeyes round out the top ten, as part of four Big Ten schools in the top-14 of the rankings (No. 12 Wisconsin and No. 14 Penn State)

Other items of note:

• The Pac-10 does not have a team ranked in the Top 10 in the preseason poll for the first time in years. As a reminder, USC will not be ranked by the Coaches’ Poll in 2010 because of NCAA sanctions against the school.
• The SEC contributes six of the polls first top-25 teams.
• Pittsburgh (No. 15) is your highest ranked Big East team.
• Utah (t-No. 24) is your only other non-BCS school in the preseason top-25. Houston comes in at No. 27.

The coaches poll is one-third of the BCS formula, along with the Harris Interactive poll and the computer polls.

USA Today Coaches’ 2010 Preseason Poll

The University of Southern California’s 55-14 victory over Oklahoma in the 2005 Fiesta Bowl to claim the 2004 BCS title was a definite statement of dominance.

Now the BCS is making a definite statement of its own.

BCS executive director, addressing the media at Big 12 Media Day in Dallas, Texas, told the assembled crowd that if USC’s appeal of the NCAA’s sanctions in regards to former Trojan Reggie Bush is to fail, the 2004 BCS title will be vacated.

Currently, the Trojans have been levied a two-year postseason ban and the loss of 20 scholarships, however the school is appealing the ruling to reduce both sentences by half. ‘SC was also docked the 13 wins from the 2004 season, but because the NCAA does not control the BCS title, it could not directly rule for the school to vacate that title.

Hancock’s announcement solidifies weeks of speculation as to what the BCS would do with the NCAA ruling. Many had also speculated whether the ’04 championship will be given to another team, namely Oklahoma (12-1 in 2004) or Auburn (13-0), but the term “vacation” means a simple removal — not awarding it to another team — as a “forfeiture” would.

The records from the 2004 edition of the Trojans will be removed from record books, including those statistics which reflect on Bush, former coach Pete Carroll and USC all-time wins.

Now that conference realignment talks have — at long last — settled down, let’s take a quick look as to where this leaves the FBS conferences moving forward.

First and most importantly, none of the changes you heard about last month will not be taking affect this season. The 11 BCS and non-BCS conferences you’ve come to know and love remain in tact for at least one more season.

However, starting in the 2011-12 season (still more than a year away), things will begin to get a little unfamiliar.

The first so-called “domino” to fall in last month’s conference realignment fiasco was surprisingly Nebraska’s move to the Big 10 conference. The Cornhuskers were an integral part of the Big 12, joining in 1996 along with the rest of the former Big Eight conference.

The Big 12 then saw Colorado follow in Nebraska’s footsteps out the conference door, with the Buffalos instead deciding to take to the west coast, joining the Pacific-10 conference.

The Utah Utes took a step in the same direction, vacating their seat at the head of the BCS-buster table as a part of the Mountain West conference to join an automatically-qualifying conference in the BCS-automatic-qualifying Pac-10.

As the Utes departure was written in the tea leaves for some time, the Mountain West went about replacing them before they had even made the announcement and came back with the Utes’ co-hosts at the top of the BCS-buster world, bringing Western Athletic Conference member Boise State into the MWC mix.

With the four teams sending shockwaves around the college football landscape in short order, more moves were expected, but conference members showed surprising loyalty, and the rest of the conference world was left unchanged.

So to wrap:

• Colorado and Nebraska left the Big 12, leaving the Big 12 with 10 teams.
• Boise State left the WAC and joined the MWC leaving the conference with nine teams after Utah left the conference.
• Colorado and Utah joined the Pac-10 giving the conference 12 teams.
• Nebraska joined the Big 10, leaving the conference with 12 teams.

With the net net gains and losses as such in regards to the rules of the BCS:

• With 12 teams the Pac-10 will be able to hold a conference championship game.
• With 12 teams the Big 10 will be able to hold a conference championship game.
• With only 10 teams the Big 12 will no long be able to hold a conference championship game.
• The Utah Utes is the first “BCS buster” school to move from a non-BCS conference to an automatically-qualifying conference.
• The MWC’s qualification and affiliation with the BCS remains unchanged.

Remember none of these changes are effective immediately, with the first move not planned until the beginning of the 2011-12 academic year.

With what many consider the best playoff system in any sport talking expansion, many might next turn to the BCS to expand or change.

The argument has been around for years. Why is the college football system so unwilling to change? Why don’t they just follow the incredibly successful footsteps of March Madness? What would be so wrong about a playoff system?

Each side has its pros and cons, things that make them unique, and reasons for change and reasons to be conservative.

Without taking sides, here are some of the arguments:

In college football, every game matters. In college basketball, March Madness is the only time people really pay attention.

With a 12 or 13 game season in college football, supporters of the current bowl system say that each game makes a huge impact on the postseason, as if each game itself were a playoff game. A 30+ game season in college basketball can sometime drag on for fans, and yes, some fans don’t pay very close attention to the regular season.

Yet if you turn on SportsCenter on a weekday night, college basketball games featuring ranked teams still seem pretty important to them, and blogs, media and fans in general do really seem to care if the raucous fans around the country are any indication of a January conference matchup.

In college basketball, the best two teams at the end play. In college football, many would argue that doesn’t always happen.

In 2004, a year many consider the BCS’s biggest mistake, Auburn — an undefeated team and SEC Champions — was left out of the BCS National Title Game (that year the Orange Bowl). Tiger fans cried foul, saying that the two best teams were not playing for the championship, and they were unfairly excluded from a chance at a title.

While Tiger fans may have been justified, they were powerless to stop the Oklahoma vs. USC matchup that would occur.

In college basketball, 65 teams get a shot at the title. After five rounds, two teams are left to battle it out.

But take 2010 for example. Kansas, Kentucky and Syracuse were thought to be the best teams in the nation all year. Yet, now that we’ve reached the Final Four, where are they? They lost in earlier rounds, and will not get a chance to compete for the title. So are the best teams in the nation competing this weekend in Indianapolis? Butler, Michigan State, Duke and West Virginia are all good, but very few would have said that these were the best four teams in the nation before the Madness started.

So which way is better?

A 65-team tournament is more feasible for college basketball. A tournament of any size isn’t really feasible for college football.

The Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) is 120 teams large. Division I basketball is 342 teams large. Could you really find a tournament style that would be as inclusive for football as the NCAA tournament is for basketball? Plus the schedule of football directly conflicts with college finals and winter vacation, how could you resolve the issues with academics?

Its difficult for anyone to come to a consensus on the topic. Numerous sites have tried to engineer playoff systems for college football including Yahoo!, BCS Evolution and BCS Sucks among literally thousands of ideas scattered across the internet.

Yet no two can come to final conclusion about how it should work while still keeping everyone happy. It seems nearly impossible.

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There are many other arguments to be made on both sides here. The issues probably wont be resolved anytime soon, but the arguments likely wont stop either.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

Who’s the favorite for the 2011 BCS National Title Game?

Yep, easy logic would land any marginally informed college football fan at the Alabama Crimson Tide.

A repeat doesn’t seem too unlikely seeing as freshman running back Trent Richardson, redshirt junior quarterback Greg McElroy, coach Nick Saban and yes, Heisman winner sophomore running back Mark Ingram all return.

But of the entirety of the rest of the Football Bowl Subdivision, who would be be next in line?

Well I’m here to tell you that you shouldn’t count out Boise State.

Yes, the very same Boise State of the Western Athletic Conference,  Fiesta Bowl Statue of Liberty and Battle of BCS-Buster fame. In years past, the best the Broncos could possibly hope for was a BCS bowl bid, but this year might just be a little different. First let’s look at the Broncos non-conference opponents:

vs. Virginia Tech (Sept. 6th)
vs. Wyoming (Sept. 18th)
vs. Oregon State (Sept. 25)
vs. Toledo (Oct. 9)

Then they’ll have an eight-game Western Athletic Conference schedule, during which they went 8-0 last season. Not too tough a schedule, right?

Now think about where they might start the season in the polls… In all likelyhood top-10 if not top-five on the strength of their Fiesta Bowl victory over TCU at the end of last season and the fact that they’re returning almost all of their starters from last year, including quarterback Kellen Moore.

So a couple losses combined with moving slowly up the rankings with wins over very beatable teams, plus the always friendly computer rankings for an unbeaten team, and what might we have? An undefeated Boise State team playing for the BCS National Championship Game.

Yes you heard me right. The Boise State Broncos could very easily make their way to the National Title Game next year, and all they would really need is to go undefeated and have three or four teams lose ahead of them. If the past few seasons are any indication, more than three or four preseason top-five teams are going to lose at least once before the season is up meaning that Boise has a legitimate shot.

Forecasters and gamblers alike also like this proposition, as Boise State has been installed as the second favorite to win the BCS national title, at 12/1 odds according to bodog.com.

Could this finally be the year? Its still far far away, but this just gets you to thinking….