Lots of close calls, but no actual upsets, such is a fairly typical Saturday in November. With the stakes higher for the top teams, they tend to be tighter and more vulnerable. But at least in today's case, they all found a way to pull out victories.
Lots of TV pundits speculated that TCU's close victory would be costly to the Frogs in the BCS standings. That's largely nonsense. San Diego State is a good team and rated reasonably high in the computers. And since margin of victory is not factored in computer ratings, the 5-point win is as good as a 35-point win.
What hurt TCU most today didn't take place in Fort Worth, but a thousand miles away in South Bend, where Utah was annihilated by a heretofore mediocre Notre Dame team that had lost to Navy and Tulsa. The Frogs' 40-point victory over Utah last week was considered their signature win of the season, and now that will certainly be discounted by the voters in the polls.
And the Utes' loss also hurts TCU in the computers in this sense. Typically, late in the season, with most of the games being played in-conference, those games are usually a wash when it comes to computer ratings. But out of conference games matter more, as teams usually play only one team but not the other.
All that said, the top of this week's BCS standings should look remarkably similar to last week's, with only changes in the margins but not the placements. The Guru is projecting the top 10 to be exactly the same as last week, and frankly I do not ever remember this being the case in any of the five years that I have run projections.
So they are:
1. Oregon, 2. Auburn, 3. TCU, 4. Boise State, 5. LSU, 6. Stanford, 7. Wisconsin, 8. Nebraska, 9. Ohio State, 10. Oklahoma State, 11. Michigan State, 12. Alabama, 13. Oklahoma, 14. Arkansas, 15. Missouri.
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TCU's 5 point win DOES matter. While the computer rankings do not take margin of victory into consideration, humans do. Boise State will jump back over TCU in both of the human polls tomorrow, largely because of what happened to Utah and TCU's narrow victory. If Boise State goes on to handle Nevada and Fresno State, they will improve their computer rankings while TCU's computer ranking will take a big hit after they play New Mexico (just like Boise State's did). If Boise State wins out, they will pass TCU in the BCS rankings.
Notre Dame's dominating win over Utah just proves that these non-AQ teams are a fraud. Two weeks ago, we were supposed to believe that Utah was a national title contender. Now they get exposed by Notre Dame, a team that can't beat my sister and her high school friends.
Stop the madness.
I've said it before and I will say it again, Playoffs are about being fair, BCS is about money. Every other sports on this earth is decided by who is the better team on the field, college football is about who has the fattest checkbook. Good thing I'm an ohio state fan....
Nebraska has played NOBODY and are way too high in the BCS Standings.
Oregon sucked last night and Auburn's "D" sucks and their QB is an ineligible cheater...
Boise State is my clear # 1
You cite Nebraska's schedule as a downfall and then say Boise is your #1 team? Love the Rationale.
Hey, that big win in the Kibbie Dome against a quality Idaho team shouldn't be discounted. /handinwankingmotion .Donkey State should have fun in the Pointsettia Bowl.
Guru - you're way off. You should have waited for the human polls before making your predictions. You correctly made the case that Utah's loss to Notre Dame was more damaging to TCU than their 5 pt win vs. SD State. Yet you still have TCU ahead of Boise St in your projections.
Guess you had other things to do besides give you a serious projection and had your "bye week" by saying "see last week".
You cite Nebraska's schedule as a downfall and then say Boise is your #1 team? Love the Rationale.
Boise has played as good of a schedule as Nebraska and others....
The difference you (likely blatantly) overlooked is that Boise is UNDEFEATED!
Those of you touting either BSU or TCU as number one are completely off their rockers. The top teams a few deep from the real BCS conferences would also go undefeated playing in the POS that is the WAC.
Until BSU and TCU actually play a whole season in a real conference they will always be 2nd to ANY undefeated teams from the real conferences.
To say otherwise is plain idiotic and flies in the face of logic and reality.
Let's see. Nebraska has beaten OSU (ranked #10), Missori (top 25) and will play A&M (top 25) next week. Boise State has played or beaten how many ranked teams? (One VT and the lost to James Madison)...It is not that Boise is not a good team but the week to week challanges of the SEC, Big 12, Big 10 or Pac 10 schedule would expose them..
Boise is going nowhere, even being up a handful of votes in the polls.
Guru is dead-on about the Utah factor. Utah's loss to ND is about the same as VT's loss to JMU for a whole lot of human voters (which really shows how far ND has fallen).
Human voters are ignoring that Utah basically had it season destroyed in 1 quarter of TCU's top tier play, in the most hyped game in Utah history, while BSU squeaked by a team that actually lost at home to FCS team.
But TCU had a huge (.16) lead in the computers and was in a virtual tie with BSU in the human polls anyway (so the team actually in 3rd or 4th in the Harris matters little).
BSU is going to be passed in the computers by a bunch of one-loss teams, so TCU will continue ahead of BSU until the end of the season
bcsknowhow.com is a much better site than this...the guru is really off base with the bowl projections. The Big 12 will only have one team in and so will the Pac 10. Boise is going to the Sugar vs LSU.
Every conference is shit except for the SEC. There are degrees of shit (Big East being somewhere just north of DII, ACC being DI-AA), but no conference has depth. There are 1 or 2 good teams, then mediocrity. Oregon has played no team with a defense in the top 50, the Big 12 is nothing short of terrible this year, Big 10 is terrible every year but people like Lee Corso think that it's 1950 and big slow white kids are still good at football, PAC 10 continues to be the Pac One, with a rotating cast of who the "one" is.
Parity is here. Playoffs or bust. The TCU's and BSU's never wanted this system, you did.
Someone please drop some knowledge on me. What happens if Auburn loses to Alabama and then Auburn turns around and wins the SEC title game? Would that pretty much guarantee a non-AQ playing in the national title game against Oregon (assuming the ducks, TCU and Boise State win out)?
Another week of being spot on guru. I love to read all the 'fans' coming in here suggesting that you are an idiot for suggesting team A is better than team B and as such deserves to be ranked above them in the BCS. Keep up the outstanding work.
I agree with the comment above me, bcsguru is my goto BCS site. When you've come to the conclusion that the top ten will be the same, there's not much more to say. I would like to know what you think about a 12-1 SEC champion Auburn team though. I think they would make the title game. Had TCU beat SDSU by 21+ this week and Utah had beat ND with ease (or at all) I think TCU would have gone in that scenario. As it is now though, I think the voters would make sure Auburn got in.
TCU is indeed a fraud. It's garbage they're in this position. A team like Wisconsin gets ripped for scheduling cupcakes like San Diego State. For TCU, that's a conference game. One of their toughest conference games. That they almost lost. At home.
Wisconsin almost lost to Arizona State (2 FBS wins), struggled with UNLV and SJSU (two of the worst teams in FBS).
Wisconsin is No. 12 in the BCS computers for a huge reason.
On the other hand, San Diego State is 11 points from being undefeated, with all 3 losses on the road, two by controversial calls. These are not the Aztecs you remember....
Oh, and congrats Guru, for once again out-smarting Palm and the rest of the hacks....
If you want to know who should have the best teams -- look at who recruits the best. That's NOT BSU or TCU. It doesn't take a scientific study to figure that out...although someone did one once.
Here's a newflash -- NEITHER BSU or TCU will make it to the championship (nor should they). If they did, no one will pay for 3rd or 4th Quarter ads. Follow the money, people.
@ChrisSh, PeteP, and others: Thanks so much for sticking up for me against the naysayers. I usually just let my record speak for itself, but it's always good to know that I have your support.
As for some of the questions: I think Auburn has a shot as a one-loss team, if that one loss is against Alabama. It can't lose the SEC title game. But in that scenario I still think either TCU or Boise has a better chance to get into the BCS title game.
Wisconsin and Ohio State have only themselves to blame for the lackluster computer ratings. Both teams' SOS are lower than both TCU and Boise's, according to Sagarin. They will improve slightly if they win the final two games, but not enough to get into the top 5 in the computers.
Yeah, nobody ever wants to watch a David vs. Goliath matchup, huh? Don't be silly. That game would have huge ratings.
It would be the first time ever that a non-powerhouse school had a chance to win the National Championship.
And if it was all about who recruits the best, then Texas wouldn't be as sorry as they are (1-4 at home?). They pull Top 5 classes every year.
Auburn's not going to get any favors if they lose a game...not with this Cam Newton scandal going on. Nobody would have sympathy for Auburn - right or wrong.
BCS Guru wrote: Wisconsin and Ohio State have only themselves to blame for the lackluster computer ratings.
I don't think that's entirely true; they can blame their entire conference's scheduling practices. Even if Wisconsin or Ohio State had played a very strong OOC schedule, their SoS would be hurt by the weakness of their fellow Big 10 members' non-conference schedules. All Big 10 teams except Northwestern have at least seven home games, many of those games against directional schools.
On the other hand, the entire Pac-10's SoS is buoyed by the scheduling practices of all ten schools. Witness Arizona State's Sagarin SoS rating of #5 despite their two FCS wins. Scheduling tough non conference bouts and having nine conference games buoys the Pac-10's SoS tremendously. Once the difficult schedules are established in non-conference, making the Pac-10 appear stronger to the computers, playing other Pac-10 schools only makes them appear that much better. According to Sagarin, the Pac-10 has the eight highest SoS in the nation. And by playing each other, that only makes the gap wider.
Bottom line: for Wisconsin or Ohio State to improve their computer numbers significantly, they wouldn't just need to increase the difficulty of their own schedules; they would need the other Big 10 schools to pitch in as well.
A good way to test this claim is the "god mode" of the Colley Matrix:
http://www.colleyrankings.com/playgod.html
Let's take Ohio State:
If you remove the wins agianst Marshall and Eastern Michigan and replace them with wins against TCU and Boise State, Ohio State jumps from #12 to #2.
I think it's safe to say that Ohio State qould have been able to schedule TCU and Boise State - even both at home.
Conclusion: Just by scheduling better OOC games, Ohio State could dramatically improve their computer rankings.
(The difficulty of actually winning these games is the obvious drawback)
"And if it was all about who recruits the best, then Texas wouldn't be as sorry as they are (1-4 at home?). They pull Top 5 classes every year." A pretty weak argument, given that Texas was in (and probably should have won) the National Championship last year. They also won it against USC not long ago -- you know. The fact is BSU and TCU don't get the best players -- so naturally they will not have the best team (absent some statistical miracle).
Oh, give me a break.
'Rivals.com' doesn't determine who wins the National Championship each year.
Getting a great recruiting class gives you an edge, but it's the system and the coaching that turns a recruiting class into a great team.
And the Texas is example was just fine. They still pull Top 5 recruiting classes. It doesn't matter if they were in the National Championship game. According to you, if they pull the top recruits (which they do), they are better than teams that don't (which they aren't). They've been getting their butts kicked all year long despite having a team full of 4-star and 5-star recruits. Explain away.
""And if it was all about who recruits the best, then Texas wouldn't be as sorry as they are (1-4 at home?). They pull Top 5 classes every year." A pretty weak argument, given that Texas was in (and probably should have won) the National Championship last year. They also won it against USC not long ago -- you know. The fact is BSU and TCU don't get the best players -- so naturally they will not have the best team (absent some statistical miracle)."
I'm assuming the people who are making this argument that recruiting information shows who the best teams are aren't actually dumb enough to believe it. Under Charlie Weis Notre Dame had top 5 recruiting classes year after year. Was Notre Dame a top 5 team with these great recruits? A top 10 team? A top 25 team? A consistently bowl eligible team? And Notre Dame beating Utah shows that the non aq teams are a fraud? I guess Utah beating Alabama in the Sugar Bowl a few years ago showed that the SEC was a fraud and JMU beating Virginia Tech this year showed that all of the FBS is a fraud. Its convenient for these people that TCU and Boise State had to play each other last year because with the exception of Alabama and Florida they would have destroyed any other team in the country (including Texas who gave up an obscene number of points to Texas a&m and couldn't get a first down against Nebraska). I wonder if we will be having this discussion next year if Auburn or Oregon loses and Boise State goes on to beat one of them in the national championship game.
I think its funny that a lot of people on this post think that Non AQ teams are not worth the time of day. If you take a look at the AQ Conferences, those teams(schools) are not as good as they used to be. For example the Big East. There's no reason for a non ranked team to be involved in a championship series and apparently that will be allowed with the admission of Pitt or West Virginia. Same with the overrated Big 12. In evidence, it's clearly shown that these Non AQ teams CAN beat these teams. Take a look at Alabama(SEC) vs Utah(MWC) (BCS Bowl) (Winner: UTAH). TCU(MWC) vs Texas Tech, Baylor, Oklahoma, Oregon State (TCU won in the past 4 years). Same with Boise State. We need to give these teams credit for their wins, instead of penalizing them. TCU and Boise State are worth the opportunity and should play against the best. IMO....After watching Cal vs Oregon and Auburn vs Ol Miss; TCU and Boise State has more than any amount of chance to beat them in a good fight.
Well, so much for the Boise Myth.
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