BCS Breakdown Week #7

By: Ben Malley

1. Ohio State .942

2. South Florida .920

3. Boston College .891

4. LSU .840

5. Oklahoma .762

6. South Carolina .743

7. Kentucky .683

8. Arizona State .683

9. West Virginia .662

10. Oregon .637

11. Virginia Tech .630

12. California .600

13. Kansas .517

14. USC .472

15. Florida .435

The nearly full point difference between fourth placed LSU and fifth placed Oklahoma means that if any two of the top four win out they will play in the title game.

Ohio State still plays everyone who matters in the Big 10 (Illinois, Wisconsin, Penn St. and Michigan). The Big 10 may be down this year, but if they can win those games I will have to grudgingly admit they’ll have earned their spot in the championship game.

The computers love South Florida ranking them first, with Rutgers, Cincinnati and Louisville still on the schedule. Because the name of the school is South Florida it’s hard to see them making it through the year undefeated, but those pesky computers aren’t taking into account that South Florida had never even been ranked, ever, before this year.

Boston College only has two tests, a trip to Blacksburg, and most likely a rematch in the ACC championship game. However, they didn’t impress at all against a horrible Notre Dame and may slip up against inconsistent ACC competition such as Clemson, Florida St. and Miami.

LSU is through the toughest part of their schedule, but they will play either South Carolina (who they’ve already beaten handily), Florida (an amazing comeback victory), Tennessee or Kentucky (a revenge match up) in the SEC championship game. If an SEC homer reads this (which they won't because I don't think I have any SEC homer friends) they will call me out and say that LSU still has to play Auburn, Alabama and Arkansas. Well what I'm actually doing here is saying that I think LSU is so good, so elite, that they won't have any trouble with those mediocre SEC teams.

Oklahoma is also through the rough part (Texas, Mizzou) of the weak Big 12. Oklahoma looks the most likely to get into the national championship game if someone slips up. They still have to get by the Big 12 North winner where they may be the first test for Kansas who might actually still be undefeated at that point.

I haven’t said a thing about the Pac 10 because the computers seem to hate them, making the conference basically as relevant as the WAC with respect to the national title picture. With Cal losing, ironically Oregon becomes the Pac 10 team with the "best loss." Of course, I'm not respecting undefeated Arizona State at all, but then again neither is the BCS ranking system. One of the great things about the Pac 10 is that everybody plays everybody. Much like in the Big 10 this year not too many of the contenders have played each other yet. October 27 will clear a lot of things up with Cal at Arizona St and USC at Oregon.