If Alabama and Florida State win out, the debate around who deserves to be No. 3 is all for naught. The new BCS rankings were released yesterday and, as expected, the top two spots went unchanged. All attention revolves around Ohio State (who still hasn’t lost), Baylor and the microscopic margin between the schools.
Ohio State has a BCS average of .8869. Baylor’s is .8856.
For the Buckeyes, all that remains are Indiana, Michigan and the Big Ten championship December 7. In turn, Baylor has No. 10 Oklahoma State, TCU and Texas. Needless to say, the strength of schedule factor resides firmly with Baylor. Depending if the Bears not only beat State but beat them handily in the manner they did OU, best believe residents of Columbus will be on high alert this time week. However, if one or both lose, then forget these words ever happened.
USC’s upset of Stanford placed them back in the Top 25 while No. 16 Northern Illinois remains on the heels of No. 15 Fresno State for the highly-coveted automatic BCS bid. No. 17 UCF, led by Storm Johnson and Blake Bortles, will require outside assistance (someone losing) to ascend in the rankings off the strength the American Athletic Conference is widely viewed as the weakest of automatic qualifying conferences.
Meanwhile, Johnny Manziel, Mike Evans and the Texas A&M Aggies close the season out with two extremely important road games against No. 22 LSU and No. 8 Missouri. TAMU winning both games places them in the top 10 (possibly top five) with Baylor/OkSU and Auburn/Alabama on the horizon. “Non-AQ” teams must reach the BCS top 16 and outrank one “AQ” champion to be eligible for an automatic BCS berth.
In other words, it’s in A&M’s best interest to just keep winning.
1 Alabama .9914
2 Florida State .9661
3 Ohio State .8869
4 Baylor .8856
5 Oregon .7917
6 Auburn .7860
7 Clemson .7681
8 Missouri .7231
9 Stanford .6238
10 Oklahoma State .5890
11 South Carolina .5883
12 Texas A&M .5394
13 Michigan State .4646
14 UCLA .4615
15 Fresno State .4134
16 Northern Illinois .3729
17 Arizona State .3414
18 UCF .3033
19 Wisconsin .2907
20 Oklahoma .2760
21 Louisville .2664
22 LSU .2645
23 USC .1070
24 Ole Miss .1048
25 Minnesota .0604
Previously: Your College Football Recap, Week 12: Cheer Up, Buckeyes Fans! And Touchdown Catches Are Awesome
Photo: Getty