Ohio State Tops Preseason BCS Standings

Huh? That's right, we have the preseason Bowl Championship Series standings in hand, thanks to Sam Chi, the BCS Guru, and Ohio State — the team everybody loves to hate — is No. 1.

USC is No. 2, making the Sept. 13 meeting between the Buckeyes and Trojans at the L.A. Coliseum of Herculean importance. Georgia is No. 3, Oklahoma sits at No. 4 and Florida resides at No. 5. The rest of the top 10: No. 6 Missouri, No. 7 Louisiana State, No. 8 West Virginia, No. 9 Clemson and No. 10 Texas. Every team that received at least a single vote in the Associated Press or coaches poll is placed in Sam's BCS standings, all the way down to a tie for 57th between Washington and Hawaii.

What is Sam's methodology for his preseason rankings? He writes: "It's the same formula that produces the official BCS standings, with two exceptions: 1) Since the Harris Interactive Poll that accounts for 1/3 of the standings won't be available until late September, the AP poll is used in its place; 2) None of the six BCS computers publish preseason ratings, so ratings from 20 computers that do are used. The highest and lowest ratings for each team are discarded, and the remaining 18 averaged to produce the computer score."

The first set of official standings won't be released until Sunday, Oct. 12, but Wiz readers will once again be ahead of the curve in 2008. Sam will be providing us with updated standings on Saturday nights throughout the season so you'll know about 18 hours in advance of the "official" announcement on Fox of where your team stands each week.