The new BCS rankings are out.
The big news is that Hawaii (11-0) has moved up to the #12 slot, which would guarantee them a BCS game. That's $10M for the WAC.
Otherwise the top three are:
1. Missouri (11-1)
2. West Virginia (10-1)
3. Ohio State (11-1)
I said earlier that I don't know how one selects two of these three one loss teams and doesn't take the other. Kansas also only has a single loss, but there is a head-to-head result to justify putting Missouri into the championship game instead of them. So Kansas gets a BCS game if Missouri beats OU, otherwise OU gets to be the second team from the Big 12 and KU gets squat after losing only its final game. (This is because there is a BCS rule that at most two teams from a conference may qualify, and one of them is guaranteed to be the conference champion.) This is despite the fact that KU will almost certainly be ranked ahead of OU in the final poll. That's another serious flaw with the BCS system.
If we look at who defeated these four one-loss teams we see:
#9 Oklahoma beat Missouri
#21 South Florida beat WV
#15 Illinois beat OSU
#1 Missouri beat Kansas
According to that Kansas actually has the best loss.
If we look at the best wins by these four teams we get:
Missouri defeated #4 Kansas
West Virginia defeated #23 Cinci
Ohio State defeated #18 Wisconsin
Kansas did not defeat a current top 25 team
So Kansas doesn't have a quality win.
Therefore, I've have to conclude the following:
A. If Hawaii beats Washington next week, then Hawaii has every right to claim a chance to face the #1 ranked BCS team for the title. But silly BCS people will likely keep an undefeated team out of that game two years in a row. That's clear sign of a broken system.
B. If Hawaii is denied an opportunity and both Missouri and West Virginia win next week, then two of this week's top three teams need to be selected.
Of these three teams, Missouri would have both the beat win and best loss, so they are in, but who is their opponent?
OSU has both a better top win and a better loss than WV, but WV's strength of schedule is 29 whihle OSU played the 43rd toughest. Of course, WV still has to play Pitt (4-7) and ranked 78th, so after that contest WV's SOS will drop. So should Ohio State be the choice or WV? Most folks seem to think that WV has it for sure with a win next week. I say that is definitely questionable. Upon what is their current #2 ranking based? Why shouldn't OSU be #2 and WV #3? I don't believe that it is clear either way. Can someone make a serious argument as to why one of these teams should be selected over the other? If not, I still say give Hawaii a shot.
