NFL Lineal Title

Both lineal titles are updated… and with the fall of #18 Michigan State and #9 Missouri, the BCS Title picture has dramatically clarified.

There are exactly two BCS conference unbeaten teams, and much as #3 Boise State and #1 TCU, which expected to benefit from Alabama and Ohio State losses, don’t like it, if they win out they can punch their ticket to the national title game. Neither has a lineal title at the moment, though there is a very good chance Florida’s Princeton-Yale Title could find itself at stake in the SEC title game. (Florida is just barely outside the Top 25 this week.)

If #6 Auburn or #2 Oregon lose, that’s when all hell will break loose. Boise and TCU will claim they deserve to get in (assuming TCU gets past #8 Utah this week), but #10 Alabama, the Big 12 Title winner, and based on the C Ratings, #4 Ohio State will have very legitimate claims. We could be in for another BCS Mess.

Other thoughts on the new C Ratings:

• Alabama, as far as most people are concerned, is consolidating their position as the best 1-loss team. How much of that is starting the season #1 in the country? As noted above, they’ll have a legit case if they win out and they will be a trap game for their rival, but they might be overrated at the moment. Ohio State continues to be ranked behind #23 Wisconsin in the BCS, restraining their ranking, as people continue to read too much into the outcome of one game (a road loss to a team that beat their best non-conference opponent, mediocre Arizona State, by one point at home). #11 Arizona continues to be underrated and behind #13 Stanford… but as Rece Davis pointed out on “BCS Countdown”, that could change in a hurry if they beat the other elite Pac-10 teams, starting with Stanford this week. If it weren’t for their already-lofty C Rating, I’d think that would lead to people overreacting to a few games. What motivation does #21 USC have the rest of the way.
• Baylor-#12 Oklahoma State will be for at least a share of the Big 12 South lead. Yes, BAYLOR is your current Big 12 South leader. Meanwhile, Nebraska is at least as good as Oklahoma. The last year of the Big 12 as we knew it suddenly flip-flopped the roles of the divisions. (Baylor has a terrible SoS and neither Baylor nor Oklahoma State has played the Sooners, which could be an effective Big 12 South title game.)
• ACC Madness: #14 Virginia Tech leads the Coastal by two games, unbeaten in conference while everyone else has two conference losses. V-Tech hasn’t played any of the two-loss teams yet, though, so two losses could take it all away; they play all three in a row starting with G-Tech Thursday night, but Miami (FL) at the end of the string is the only one in positive B Points. #20 NC State’s win over #22 Florida State earned them respect in the BCS Standings; the Atlantic is anyone’s guess between those two and Maryland, who hasn’t played either yet. Clemson, of all teams, is the only ACC team not already noted in positive B Points.
• What are the chances the Princeton-Yale Title is on the line in the SEC Title game? Pretty good; #15 South Carolina is in the lead in the East in the standings, the BCS, and the C Ratings, and the Spurrier Bowl is the only game that matters to them in terms of clinching the division. Troy and Clemson afterwards are trap games, though, both on the first page. Florida has one more conference loss and so need to avoid a loss to Vanderbilt to make the Spurrier Bowl a true effective East title game; otherwise it lets Georgia and Vandy back in it if South Carolina loses to Arkansas and Florida. #16 LSU could sneak away with the SEC West if they upset ‘Bama and Auburn loses to both Georgia and ‘Bama; if that chain of events lands them in the national title game a LOT of people will throw fits.
• #17 Iowa skyrocketed onto the top 25 with their win over Michigan State. I think they were in negative B Points last week. Fresno State could be a trap game for #19 Nevada. #24 Hawaii makes three WAC teams in the Top 25, which seems unprecedented, just in time for the big Boise State game (also for the Broncos’ lineal title). The WAC’s conference rating is better than the Mountain West and they have more Top 25 teams. Does Boise State actually deserve more benefit of the doubt for their conference this year than TCU? Can Nevada keep this up and keep the Mountain West a Big 3 post-realignment?
• #25 Pitt once again populates the Top 25 with a Big East team. The BCS, on the other hand, is deserted of Big East teams, probably because of the Notre Dame loss. But the Big East has a lot of parity, and no team has more than two conference losses, so their task is far from over. But they’ve already beaten Syracuse, so they can take one loss to any team and still punch a ticket to the BCS. West Virginia is STILL not that far outside the Top 25.

Best game of week: TCU @ Utah, 3:30pm ET, CBS CS (do not get me started, even with a free preview!)
Complete C Ratings

First, for the rest of the college football season expect the college football rankings on Monday and the SNF Flex Schedule Watch on Wednesday. Second, the lineal titles have been updated; turns out San Diego blew a chance to unify the NFL titles.

There’s a non-BCS team deserving of playing in the national championship game… but it’s not #6 Boise State.

#1 TCU is the beneficiary of #4 Oklahoma’s loss to #5 Missouri, becoming the first team all year to lead the C Ratings in two different weeks. TCU’s lead over Boise State is all the more impressive considering the Mountain West is still a worse conference top-to-bottom than the WAC. Expect Boise’s rating to improve once they play #20 Nevada and Hawaii later in the year, but for now, TCU’s beatdowns of Air Force and Baylor trump narrowly beating V-Tech – and TCU themselves still has #10 Utah to play.

Missouri didn’t benefit as much as you might think from beating Oklahoma, failing even to pass the team they beat, despite winning by 9; but it was at home and Oklahoma had by far the worst A Rating of last week’s top 5. #3 Oregon managed to pass them by crushing UCLA. Similarly, because the BCS computers don’t factor in margin of victory, #9 Auburn is your new BCS #1 but actually lost a spot in the C Ratings because the C Ratings noticed they only won by a touchdown on the road to a team outside the top 10. (#16 LSU was #6 in the BCS last week but #11 in the C Ratings.)

#2 Ohio State rounds out the top five despite holding a loss. It was to a good #21 Wisconsin team on the road; all their wins have been by double digits, including a 49-0 drubbing of a Purdue team still above .500 that sent them skyrocketing up the rankings.

Other remarks on the new C Ratings:

• The winner of the Missouri-#7 Nebraska game will win the Big 12 North and might actually be favored in the Big 12 Title Game for the first time in a long time… and the last time ever.
• Upon further review, #8 Michigan State was #10 last week and Nebraska #6 with attendant corrections to the rest of the standings, with the implication that North Carolina was in the top 25 last week as well.
• #11 Alabama better spend the bye studying film of the Auburn-LSU game, because it’s because of that game that the Tide now outrank the Tigers, and Bama needs to be ready for the game coming out of the bye. It’ll be their biggest test before the Iron Bowl.
• #18 Stanford beat Washington State by ten points but fell behind two other Pac-10 teams, in part because Wazzu sucks, in part because #12 Arizona drubbed Washington by 40 points. The Wildcats are only slowly gaining respect, but it won’t kick in for real until they play the other three best teams in the Pac-10 in November. #17 USC is still puttering around the middle of the rankings, and need a win over Oregon to be playing for anything at all.
• It looks like the win over Alabama wasn’t a fluke and the loss to Kentucky was. Vanderbilt isn’t much, but the Gamecocks lead the SEC East and are heading for a chance to prove themselves in the SEC Title Game.
• Time for ACC Madness! Does #14 Virginia Tech, who lost to James Madison, standing unbeaten in-conference say more about the Hokies or the ACC? #19 Florida State might turn out to be a little better, though, and might lead the ACC in the C Ratings if FCS games counted the way I’d like them to. Two more ACC teams, #22 NC State and #23 Miami (FL), populate the Top 25, and both are in the places you’d expect in the standings, though NC State is knotted up with Maryland, a team that’s not on the first page let alone positive B Points.
• Baylor, Oklahoma, and #15 Oklahoma State are actually locked up in a tight one in the Big 12 South, so Oklahoma could have been set back quite a bit by the Missouri loss. Yes, BAYLOR is ahead of the other Texas schools, and they and TEXAS A&M are the only ones in positive B Points, though neither is on the top 25.
• #21 Wisconsin can say “a win is a win” because they beat Iowa by only one point – though it helped that it was a road game. That pretty much firms up their claim to the Capitol One Bowl; people may continue to overreact to the Ohio State win, but it won’t be enough to give them a BCS at-large, and if Michigan State goes to the national title game I hope the Rose Bowl is smart enough to pick Ohio State.
• Yes, #24 Navy makes the top 25, hardly unprecedented. They have had some discouraging games (losing to Maryland? Beating Wake Forest by one?) but the beatdown of Notre Dame helps make up for that. #25 Florida rounds out the top 25 for real this week. They get a chance to bring the Princeton-Yale Title back to the good teams this week in the World’s Largest Cocktail Party, the first of three games they need to win to win the SEC East, but which will basically lock it up for them if they do.
• The Big East is West Virginia’s world and everyone else is paying the rent? Not so fast my friend! The Mountaineers’ loss to Syracuse not only deserts the Top 25 of Big East teams, but combined with Pitt’s stomping of Rutgers, leaves them only two spots ahead of their rival in the C Ratings, and behind the unbeaten-in-conference Panthers in the Big East standings. The ‘Cuse is getting a lot of buzz but they’re still a mediocre team; both of their losses were bad (and one was to inconsistent Washington) and they beat West Virginia by only five; their only other two FBS wins were to South Florida, a team around the same area in the ratings, and dead-last-in-the-C-Ratings Akron.

Complete C Ratings