It’s a wonder how such huge losses last Saturday could have such little impact on the upcoming weeks of college football.

In this week’s BCS standings, Alabama (as expected) retook the No. 2 ranking from Texas, who fell to third.

Let’s examine how little this actually means:

With their win over LSU on Saturday, Alabama clinched the SEC West crown, punching their ticket to the SEC Championship Game.

If the Tide and the Florida Gators meet undefeated, the winner will play in the BCS National Title game, regardless of where in the losing team falls in the rankings.

The hardest remaining game for Florida is its trip to South Carolina, while Alabama still must play at Auburn, however both of these opponents are unranked.

The undefeated Texas Longhorns should also finish strong against a depleted Big 12, and will likely meet a four-loss underdog in the Big 12 Championship Game.

Win out and Texas is in the BCS National Title game too.

So three top 10 teams lose on Saturday, and the national title picture hasn’t changed in the slightest.

The interesting part of the BCS actually starts at No. 4.

This week TCU jumped up to claim that spot from Iowa, giving them a good shot at an at-large BCS bowl bid.

No. 5 Cincinnati needed a near-perfect performance from QB Zach Collaros to stay undefeated, and is now the top-ranked team from a BCS conference outside of the Big 12 and the SEC.

No. 6 Boise State should be thanking its lucky stars that No. 10 Iowa lost on Saturday.

Now it’s unlikely that the Big 10 will get more than one BCS bowl bid, which opens the door for non-BCS conference teams like the Broncos.

No. 7 Georgia Tech gained the most from the weekend losses by jumping up three spots. The Yellow Jackets should be Orange Bowl-bound.

There is a huge gap between No. 7 and No. 8, but after their loss, LSU should be pleasantly surprised.

The No. 9 USC Trojans find themselves back in the BCS top 10 this weekend, after just one week outside, but have no chance at a national title.

No. 11 Ohio State and No. 12 Pittsburgh round out the top 12, with the Panthers giving the Big East two top-12 teams for the first time this season.

BCS Rankings – November 8th

No matter how set in stone the national title picture might seem, it’s never truly over until the last BCS standings are released. The past few years certainly taught us that much.

As the analysts continue to believe, the winner of the Alabama-Florida SEC Championship Game will meet Texas on Jan. 7, 2010 for the national title.

But be wary—the BCS is a wild ride, and we’re nowhere near the end.

And LSU is going to have something to say about it by the end, and they get their first crack on Saturday.

The Tigers will travel to Tuscaloosa to face the Crimson Tide and Mark Ingram, knowing that a victory over Alabama would likely give them another chance to face the Gators, this time at a neutral site for the SEC Championship Game.

Don’t look now, but a victory there could very well get the Tigers to the BCS Championship Game, but we’ll cross that bridge if we get there.

Other than that ranked matchup in the SEC, the weekend doesn’t bear much possibility of a BCS-influencing game, but, then again, you never know with the BCS.

Ohio State versus Penn State will be very good game, but neither team is realistically in the national title picture.

They can still compete for a BCS bowl bid if Iowa, on the edge of losing for weeks, finally falters.

At this point in the season, strong displays of skill from top teams might affect poll votes, but it won’t be much. Usually, the media and coaches don’t like changing team rankings without a significant reason.

Look out for changes on the computer, if we want any real change next week other than the precipitous drop from whichever team loses in that SEC battle.

Alabama—with a victory—would get a big boost from the victory over an opponent with the strength of LSU, and could jump Texas (facing a very computer-mediocre UCF) again, as the two teams battle for the No. 2 ranking in the BCS.

The TCU-Boise State computer showdown will continue to make noise this week if both win.

Boise goes up against Louisiana Tech, while the Horned Frogs face San Diego State. Neither will see much gained from victories, but as we all know, a loss would be devastating.

So while this weekend doesn’t seem like the most interesting one of the year, every once in a while, it’s these kinds of weekends that bring the most shocking changes to the college football landscape. All you have to do is stay tuned.

Enjoy.

USA Today Coaches’ Poll

Harris Interactive Poll

It wasn’t anything terribly exciting, but another weekend in college football passed, and the national picture begins to get a little clearer.

The weekend shaped up to be one filled with tight contests and big scores, but instead what we got was a low-scoring, minimal tension weekend that underwhelmed most college football fans.

The highlight of the weekend’s slate was Florida vs. LSU, a matchup between two of the top teams in the country, and two SEC rivals. The return of Tim Tebow was supposed to amp up the offense and increase the urgency of the game, but in the end, a 13-3 Gator victory seemed telegraphed from the beginning.

True, this will likely knock LSU out of the national title hunt for a while, but the Tigers will get the chance to rebound with victories over Alabama, and then a rematch with the Gators in the SEC Championship Game, if they get that far.

For the Gators, their odd displacement at No. 3 on the projected BCS standings will no longer be an issue, as the victory over LSU, who held the number one spot in all five computer rankings, will boost the Gator’s computer score.

Alabama also survived a SEC matchup with Ole Miss, easily dispatching of the Rebels 22-3 in a defense heavy contest. The Crimson Tide will duel with the Gators for the final number one ranking of the projected BCS, as after next week’s slate of games, the fully functional BCS standings will finally arrive.

Among those who also won on this favorites day; Iowa, who won in thrilling fashion, holding off yet another Tate Forcier comeback attempt in their Big 10 match up; Texas, who fended off a halftime deficit to take control in their victory over Colorado; and Virginia Tech, who continue to make their case as the best one-loss team in the nation.

Unbeatens remained unbeaten, most favorites won out, and the college football world now can only wait for the home stretch of eight weeks, all of which have the BCS to credit for their intensity and drama.

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Updates will come tomorrow after the human polls are released and the projected BCS will be more clear.

-BCSKnowHow.com

As we approach day zero, where the BCS rankings are finally and officially revealed to the world, BCS Know How’s projected BCS rankings are taking a turn.

Yes, sure the “BCS Know How Projected BCS Standings” were fun, taking a good guess at what I thought they might be. And truthfully I wasn’t far off. Sure I knew that Florida surprisingly enough wouldn’t be #1 if the BCS was released, but I left them there because of their overwhelming domination of the human element of the BCS.

Well, now that five of the six computer rankings have been released, the reality has set in. The computers just do not love Florida. At all.

Yet with the addition of the fifth computer rankings, who ALL claim LSU as the best team in the nation, and seem to overwhelmingly prefer Alabama and Virginia Tech over Florida as well, I am forced to change it to a more realistic calculation.

The new standings can be found below and at BCSKnowHow.com and all pages on the site.

It’s very surprising to see three SEC teams lined up all in a row at numbers one through three, but that just proves the strength in opinion while simultaneously proving the SEC’s strength in numbers.

The SEC has been and continues to be a dominant conference, and yes, after this weekend, the rankings are sure to change, but for now the Southeastern Conference ain’t nothing to mess with.

Without any further ado. The projected BCS rankings, within a 94.166% confidence:

A week with no excitement. A week with total destruction of college football’s top ten. A week with complete parity and mid-major capitalization. Does this college football season have an identity yet? Is it one of chaos, mid-majors or of traditional powers reclaiming the spotlight?

Certainly, Week 5 had its fair share of exciting match ups featuring conference and non-conference foes battling it out as the first BCS rankings loom ever closer, but for a change of place, not many upsets took place on a ripe weekend for one.

The biggest of course, would be Miami (FL) taking advantage of an obviously weakened Oklahoma team in a non-conference battle, and beating them 21-20. The Hurricanes had just come off a loss to Virginia Tech, which if they had won, would have set them up nicely for a run for the national title, but this huge victory over the Sooners may give them hope yet.

Ranked match ups only come so often, especially in conference, but if you want to make a bet where one might happen, the SEC is probably the place to look.

Georgia and LSU took the field in between the hedges to make a case for complete SEC supremacy among the six BCS conferences. In pulling out the late win, it is possible that LSU has finally legitimized the fact that three of the top four teams in all polls are SEC combatants.

The projected BCS won’t look much different this weekend, we’ll give you that much, but its likely that among the jumpers will be Miami, and maybe even a small boost for LSU, but enough for a position increase? Maybe, maybe not, we’ll have to see what the human polls give us in the morning.

Maybe the biggest upset of the night came from the mid-major world, where Houston, one of three mid-majors believed to still have a shot at a BCS-bust, fell in an absolute shootout in Texas, falling to UTEP 58-41.

That leaves just TCU and Boise State as possibly BCS busters, and the road looks bright for both, with forgiving schedules, making it quite possible that we will finally see a year with two BCS busters in the ten BCS bowl spots. Who knows?

-BCSKnowHow.com