All eight teams of the BCS’s top eight remain unchanged this week, after the middle weekend in November held no surprises for the nation’s best.

Moving up into the ninth spot was Pittsburgh, the beneficiary of Iowa’s loss and of some national exposure from their game against Notre Dame. The Panthers’ entrance into the BCS top ten is the first time this year that the Big East has had two teams in the top ten, joining constant No. 5 Cincinnati.

Even the scores don’t see much change along the top of the standings, as the distance between Florida, Alabama and Texas remained rather unchanged from a week ago.

Also seeing great improvement was Ohio State, on the heels of their overtime victory over Iowa, but was unable to make their way into the top ten. Not to worry though, the Buckeyes are assured a Rose Bowl bid, and therefore don’t really need to worry much about final BCS standings.

Important progress has been made in the realm of at-large bids in this week’s BCS standings despite the lack of movement at the top.

USC’s third loss of the season kicked them out of the top 14, a necessary requirement for a BCS at-large bid, and opened the door a little more for two BCS buster schools to get at-large bids this year – which would be a first.

Penn State lingers at No. 14, who theoretically could be chosen above the Broncos for an at-large bid, but they will have to survive one final test at Michigan State next weekend.

Its unlikely that the Big 12, Big East or ACC will get an at-large bid, which leaves a few spots open for at-large selections, and hope for Boise State remains.

BCS Rankings – November 15th

USA Today Coaches’ Poll

Harris Interactive Poll

To call this season of college football boring would be a terrible, terrible mistake.

To call this past weekend’s serving of college football boring – well that might be a pretty good assessment.

Another weekend goes by, and nothing seems to change in college football. In fact, this weekend, only one top ten team lost to an unranked opponent, No. 9 USC’s shocking home loss to Stanford.

Other than the Trojan egg laying at the LA Coliseum, favorites won out.

The most interesting storyline to come out of the weekend was probably that Ohio State claimed the first BCS bowl bid with their 27-24 overtime victory over Iowa. In clinching at least a share of the Big 10 conference title, the Buckeyes also hold the BCS bid tiebreaker, and will likely head to the Rose Bowl.

The weekend was supposed to be about a threat to TCU’s ascension to BCS glory. That didn’t exactly pan out.

Instead what we got was a really entertaining show from the Horned Frogs, enough that many might call for TCU to jump at least Texas in the next BCS standings. Will it happen?

Likely not, but expect the Horned Frogs to inch closer to the Longhorns in tomorrow’s BCS standings.

We’re inching closer to other BCS bowl bids filling up, especially in the ACC, where Georgia Tech clinched the ACC Coastal Division and a chance to win the conference’s bid for a likely Orange Bowl berth. Clemson is a step away from that game as well after CJ Spiller helped the Tigers win on Saturday.

In the Big East, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh both won, setting up an ultimate showdown on the regular season’s final weekend for the conference’s BCS bowl bid, if the two teams can make it there without a conference loss.

Texas, Alabama and Florida all continued their respective marches to their conference title games as well.

So the entire top eight won on Saturday, so tomorrow’s BCS will look mighty familiar to us all, except probably at the eighth spot, where Ohio State is likely to take over for LSU, who was pretty darn close to losing to Louisiana Tech on Saturday, and won’t find any help from the human element or the computer element for that surprisingly close result.

The Buckeyes on the other hand will get help in both areas for beating a previously adored Hawkeye team, especially in the computers.

Without any polling information, here is a quick stab at what the BCS top 8 might look like when released after the end of NFL action on FOX Sunday evening:

Projected BCS Standings November 15th