So who'd be the BCS' No. 1 if the standings came out today? Would it be consensus No. 1 Ohio State, the top team in The Associated Press, USA Today and Harris polls? Or maybe fellow unbeaten Oregon, ranked No. 2 and earning first-place votes in all three polls?
According to the projection of ESPN's Brad Edwards, it's consensus No. 3 Boise State.
According to the projections, the No. 1 Buckeyes would place fifth in the BCS standings, percentage points behind Oklahoma.
Edwards projects the unbeaten Broncos, the highest-ranked team from a non BCS conference, as the top team in the standings by a comfortable margin, followed by Oregon. The top two teams in the final regular-season BCS standings play in the BCS National Championship Game.
Fellow BCS buster TCU places third in Edwards' projections, followed by Oklahoma at .8425 and Ohio State at .8421.
That might annoy Buckeye fans looking to celebrate Ohio State's first AP No. 1 ranking since the final regular-season poll of 2007. But Ohio State coach Jim Tressel pointed out Sunday that the only constant in the polls is that they're always changing.
"You take a look at the top 10 week to week and the precarious nature of any ranking is obvious -- just review the change in the makeup of the top 10 between the beginning of the season until now," Tressel said.
Of the top 10 teams in the preseason AP rankings, only six remain. Florida, No. 4 to start the year, is now No. 22, while Iowa has fallen from No. 9 to No. 15. Texas and Virginia Tech are unranked.
Oregon was No. 11 in the preseason poll.
Undefeateds LSU, Nebraska, Auburn and Michigan State and once-beaten Alabama round out the top 10 of Edwards' BCS projections.
The first official BCS standings of the season will be released on Sunday on the "BCS Countdown Show" at 8:15 p.m. ET on ESPN.
The formula that produces the BCS standings is one-third USA Today poll, one-third Harris Interactive poll and one-third computer rankings.
Brad Edwards is a college football researcher at ESPN and writes the "Road to the BCS" column weekly during the season. Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
SOURCE
.
0 comments:
Post a Comment