Saturday, November 24, 2007

BCS Guru: Missouri Is New No. 1

Missouri's 36-28 victory over Kansas will vault the Tigers to the top of the Bowl Championship Series standings, according to projections by the BCS Guru.

All the Tigers need to do to earn a berth to the BCS title game is beat Oklahoma in Saturday's Big 12 title game in San Antonio. The Tigers' only loss came to the Sooners, 41-31, on Oct. 13 in Norman.

West Virginia will be No. 2 when the official standings are announced Sunday. The Mountaineers need only a victory over a 4-7 Pittsburgh team in Morgantown. Needless to say, West Virginia will be favored by a bundle and is virtually assured a spot in the Jan. 7 title game in New Orleans.

If Missouri or West Virginia tumble, Ohio State figures to move into the title game. The Buckeyes, who have completed their regular season, are expected to be No. 3 in the rankings. As posted Friday night, a West Virginia-Ohio State title game is a strong possibility. Missouri likely will be a slight underdog against Oklahoma.

Now if Missouri and West Virginia lose, this is where it gets interesting. Kansas is expected to drop to No. 4, Georgia will be No. 5 and Louisiana State will fall to No. 6.

Completing the expected top 10: Virginia Tech (7th), USC (8th), Arizona State (9th) and Oklahoma (10th).

Of note to Hawaii fans: The Warriors are expected to be 13th, within a whisker of a guaranteed spot in a BCS game. But the Guru writes that "Illinois is lurking at No. 15, ready to invoke the new rule."

2 comments:

David Meyrowitz said...

Thanks for pointing out BCS Guru to the rest of us. I used to do that last year, just for fun, but never as complete as he does.

How about this, which I haven't heard mentioned anywhere yet. I'm not entirely sure how the PAC 10 tie-breaker works, but it still looks possible that UCLA makes the Rose Bowl and BYU makes the Sugar bowl. Here's how:

On Saturday, if UCLA beats USC, Arizona beats Arizona St, Oregon St beats Oregon, then UCLA should win the PAC 10 by holding the tie-breaker with victories over USC and Oregon St (with Oregon having 4 conference losses).

Now if BYU beats San Diego St and Hawaii loses to Washington, BYU should move up from 19 to 16 by passing Oregon, Arizona St, and Hawaii. They'd finish ahead of five loss PAC 10 champ UCLA in the BCS, giving them an automatic berth.

Do my calculations sound right? I sure hope so b/c I blogged about them earlier :)

Anonymous said...

Thanks David. I'll see if the Guru has an answer. As for the Rose Bowl, here is the link to the tiebreaking procedure, which is about as clear as some of the officiating calls in the Pac-10:

http://www.pac-10.org/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/102802aai.html