Road To The BCS Is A Bumpy One

Wild first half leads to three-way battle...for now

Oct. 7, 2007

College Football Recap: Week 6

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> Run & Shoot: Spurrier Keeps Frustrating Kentucky  |  Illini Snap Wisconsin's Win Streak Sooners Take Another Classic  |  Tennessee Wins Big  |  Ohio State's D Hits Purdue Bearcats Too Much For Rutgers  |  Stanford Stuns USC  |  LSU Partying In Baton Rouge > Trev: USC Loss Sends Shockwaves  |  Cardinal Takes The Trojans Down

Top 25 Game Recaps ----- THURSDAY ----- No. 11 South Carolina 38, No. 8 Kentucky 23 ----- SATURDAY ----- No. 1 LSU 28, No. 9 Florida 24 Stanford 24, No. 2 USC 23 No. 4 Ohio State 23, No. 23 Purdue 7 Illinois 31, No. 5 Wisconsin 26 No. 6 South Florida 35, Florida Atlantic 23 No. 7 Boston College 55, Bowling Green 24 No. 10 Oklahoma 28, No. 19 Texas 21 Tennessee 35, No. 12 Georgia 14 No. 13 West Virginia 55, Syracuse 14 No. 15 Virginia Tech 41, No. 22 Clemson 23 No. 16 Hawaii 52, Utah St. 37 No. 17 Missouri 41, No. 25 Nebraska 6 No. 18 Arizona State 23, Washington State 20 No. 20 Cincinnati 28, No. 21 Rutgers 23 Kansas 30, No. 24 Kansas State 24  Team Capsules  ---------- Air Force Akron Alabama Arizona Arizona St Arkansas Arkansas St Army Auburn BYU Ball St Baylor Boise St Boston College Bowling Green Buffalo California Central Mich Cincinnati Clemson Colorado Colorado St Connecticut Duke East Carolina Eastern Mich Florida Florida St Fresno St Georgia Georgia Tech Hawaii Houston Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Iowa St Kansas Kansas St Kent State Kentucky LSU La Tech Louisville Marshall Maryland Memphis Miami Fla Miami Ohio Michigan Michigan St Middle Tenn Minnesota Mississippi Mississippi St Missouri NC State Navy Nebraska Nevada New Mexico New Mexico St North Carolina North Texas Northern Ill Northwestern Notre Dame Ohio Ohio State Oklahoma Oklahoma St Oregon Oregon St Penn St Pittsburgh Purdue Rice Rutgers SMU San Diego St San Jose St South Carolina South Florida Southern Miss Stanford Syracuse TCU Temple Texas Texas A&M Texas Tech Toledo Troy St Tulane Tulsa UAB UCF UCLA UL-Lafayette UL-Monroe UNLV USC UTEP Utah Utah St Vanderbilt Virginia Virginia Tech Wake Forest Washington Washington St West Virginia Western Mich Wisconsin Wyoming ----------

By Jerry Palm

Special to CSTV.com

	JERRY PALM Jerry runs the web sites CollegeRPI.com and CollegeBCS.com and a CSTV.com analyst. E-mail here!

        ---   Column Archive   --- FOOTBALL 12/2: Tigers Land On Their Feet 12/2: Losses Leave BCS In Disarray 11/29: A Merciful End 11/25: A Fitting Chaos 11/22: Games To Be Thankful For 11/18: No-Backup Blues 11/15: Down The Stretch They Come 11/11: Kansas Not Quite In Control 11/11: LSU, Oregon Figure To Be Tops In BCS 11/8: Jockeying For Other BCS Bowls Begins 11/4: No. 2 Ripe For The Picking 11/1: Soft Schedule Warriors 10/28: Road To The BCS - Smooth Travels...For Now 10/25: Road To The BCS - Four On The Floor 10/21: LSU Still Not No. 2 10/14: Road Starts Rocky 10/7: Road To The BCS Is A Bumpy One 8/25: Ohio State Replacing Troy and Ted 8/7: Weis' Cloak of Secrecy 7/10: Another Date, A Lot More Dollars? 3/29: Football Playoff Up to Presidents 11/18: ND Sends Seniors Out In Style 11/11: Michigan Can Finally Look Ahead 11/9: Irish's Faint Title Hopes Alive 11/4: ND Airs It Out 10/28: USC Loss Gives New BCS Hopes 10/21: Thirty-Five Seconds Means Everything 10/7: Irish Efficient In Win 9/30: Problems? What Problems? 9/16: Wolverines Make Statement MEN'S BASKETBALL 1/22: Losers Make The News 1/15: Plenty of Bracket Impact 1/8: Season Lacking Surprise For Now 11/7: Masochistic Scheduling Tendencies 11/6: Salukis Cream of MVC Crop 10/13: Butler Back On Top 7/24: The Game's Toughest Job? 6/24: Sun Belt Goes A Different Route 6/12: The Big Balancing Act 3/29: Brand Speaks on Graduation Rates 3/12: Road To 64: Final Edition 3/6: Make Or Break Time Across The Board 2/27: It's Now Or Never 2/22: Rockets Surge Past Stumbling Huskies 2/21: Locking Up 2/20: Freshman Helps Redbirds Celebrate Senior Day 2/20: At-Large Bids Live Away From Home 2/17: Cats Tame 'Dogs in Battle of Non-BCS Powers 2/15: Purdue Pulls Big Win 2/13: Could Duke's Struggles Keep Them Out? 2/6: Who's Hot, Who's Not 1/30: Conference Play Really The Judge 1/27: A Feeling In The Ayer-s 1/26: Butler Baffles In Win 1/23: Separation At The Top 1/16: Road to the Final 64: First Edition 1/13: Badgers Survive Scare From Northwestern 1/10: Illinois State Throws Monkey Off Its Back 12/16: Oden Returns Home In Buckeye Rout 12/16: Graves Explodes For Butler 12/07: Notre Dame Hits High Tide 12/05: Purdue Handles Loyola At Home 3/31: Hoosiers Are the Talk of Indy 3/25: Looking at the Elite Eight 3/22: Big Ten Anything But 3/12: Air-ing Grievances 3/07: One Last Chance 2/27: All About Team 2/21: Looking At The Bubble 2/14: No. 1 Seeds a Tough Call 2/07: The Home Stretch 1/17: Explaining the Bracket 1/09: The Valley Is High

Going into the season, everything was so clear with the BCS. USC and LSU were on a collision course for the national championship game and nothing could stop them, but in case something did, West Virginia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Texas and Florida were waiting in the wings.

But as someone famous once said, "Ain't nothin' easy."

Last week, Oklahoma, Texas, Florida and West Virginia were all upset victims.

This week, mighty USC, with the toughest road schedule any team has faced in recent years, lost at home to league doormat Stanford, while Wisconsin lost to surging Illinois.

Now, we are looking at a top ten with teams like Boston College, USF, South Carolina and Oregon, none of which were expected to be there a month ago.

So it is with no small amount of trepidation that we look ahead to the first official release of the BCS standings next Sunday.

Things are shaping up to be a three-way battle at the top.  If LSU wins at Kentucky next week, the Tigers should be an overwhelming No. 1. The voters already have LSU a near-unanimous No. 1 and the computers love them as well. The Tigers are the only team that controls their own destiny in the BCS.

The battle for No. 2 between Ohio State and Cal - two more preseason afterthoughts - should be interesting. Ohio State, which faces Kent State next week, has two first-place votes in the coaches' poll, but the Buckeyes trail the Bears by 17 points overall. That number is down from 50 a week ago. In the Harris poll, the Cal lead was trimmed from 86 to 11.

The Bears will probably continue to trail Ohio State in the computers, but playing Oregon State at home will help that a little bit.  However, what would help more would be teams like USF, Missouri and Boston College losing. The Tigers visit Oklahoma next week, so they figure to be underdogs.

Whether or not Ohio State or Cal is second in the initial BCS next week is not meaningful in terms of how they might rate in December. The more important numbers are the margins in the Harris and coaches' polls.  Mid-October computer data is usually not reliable enough to say that the order of the teams in the first release is the way they'll stay as long as all the teams keep winning.  That's more likely to be true in the polls, which are two thirds of the formula, but the computer numbers will change significantly over the final half of the season.

So nobody needs to panic when the first release comes out. Even Kansas and Connecticut, which are still undefeated and unloved, have a chance to play for the title, no matter where they rank in the BCS next week.