Who gives a crap about this stuff? WE BEAT LSU.
WOOOOOOOOOH!
...
OK, got that out of my system. On to this week's rankings!
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbc12.htm
SEC rankings:
Alabama 101.08
Texas A&M 92.37
Florida 92.25
South Carolina 88.09
LSU 86.88
Georgia 86.25
Mississippi State 78.48
Ole Miss 77.32
Missouri 75.96
Vanderbilt 75.54
Tennessee 74.60
Arkansas 70.89
Auburn 67.51
Kentucky 60.00
Leading the following projected season:
SEC EAST
* - Georgia 7-1 (holds tie-breaker over Florida)
Florida 7-1
South Carolina 6-2
Tennessee 3-5
Vanderbilt 3-5
Missouri 1-7
Kentucky 0-8SEC WEST
* - Alabama 8-0
LSU 6-2
Texas A&M 5-3
Mississippi State 5-3
Ole Miss 4-4
Arkansas 2-6
Auburn 0-8SEC CHAMPIONSHIP: Alabama (-14) over Georgia
At this point, there are only 13 SEC games left to project (wow, this season has flown by!), so we're going to see way less movement from week to week (and these projections are going to get way more "no d'uh" as results go from projected to actual).
As for around the country:
ACC CHAMPION: Florida State (11-2, with a second win over 7-6 Miami thanks to UNC's postseason ban)
BIG EAST CHAMPION: Louisville (11-1, three-way tie with Rutgers and Cincinnati broken either by the Cardinals' better overall record or higher BCS ranking)
BIG TEN CHAMPION: Nebraska (11-2, beating out 7-6 Wisconsin from the Irrelevant Division)
BIG 12 CHAMPION: Kansas State (12-0, the Wildcats are double-digit favorites against all three of their remaining opponents)
PAC 12 CHAMPION: Oregon (13-0, taking down a scrappy 10-3 UCLA squad; Oregon State has a real shot at knocking the Ducks off, but otherwise only K-State stands between Eugene and Miami)
NON-AQ: Notre Dame (12-0, barely surviving USC but still stuck at #4 in the BCS), UCF (11-2 CUSA Champ, no wins over ranked teams), Northern Illinois (12-1 MAC Champ, win over #25 Toledo), Boise State (10-2 MWC Champ, no wins over ranked teams), Louisiana-Monroe (9-3 Sun Belt Champ, nobody's bragging about a win over Arkansas anymore), Utah State (10-2 WAC Champ, knocking La. Tech out of BCS Buster contention), Navy (8-4, wins over both of the other service academies)
As for the BCS, as always this is more complicated to project (as you have to guess how both humans and computers will react to new data), but I think K-State has the inside track. Yes, they dropped a few points in the chips last week, but that was more the result of Alabama leapfrogging them than the Wildcats dropping, and their last big move was more of a result of Florida losing more than anything else. There's not a lot of "game-changing" moments left. Yes, Oregon has the tougher SoS for the remainder of the season, but they'd have to cut K-State's chip lead in half (from .09 to .045) to get to #2, and without someone in front of Oregon losing (I'm lookin' at you, Florida and Notre Dame), I don't see that happening. Then again, if Notre Dame and/or Florida were to lose (ND projected over USC by 5, UF projected over FSU by 2), it would be Oregon in the cat bird seat by virtue of the human polls.
Now let's see if I can get the BCS selection rules right this week:
BCS CHAMPIONSHIP: Alabama vs Kansas State
FIESTA BOWL: (Replacement #2) vs. At-large #1
SUGAR BOWL: (Replacement #1) vs. At-large #2
ORANGE BOWL: Florida State vs. At-large #3
ROSE BOWL: Nebraska vs. Oregon
Notre Dame and Louisville get automatic bids, and that's about it (since none of the non-AQ champs are likely to end up ahead of Louisville or Nebraska), so that leaves three at-large bids to play with. The Sugar Bowl has a lot of gamesmanship opportunity with their first pick: Fiesta gets the 2nd and 3rd overall picks, but won't take a regular season rematch of Oklahoma vs Notre Dame, so Sugar snatches up Florida. Fiesta takes undefeated (and national brand) Notre Dame and then 10-3 UCLA (with home wins over 4 ranked teams; I know, I'm just as shocked as you are), leading Sugar to take Oklahoma and leaving Orange stuck yet again with the ACC champ vs the Big East champ.
BCS CHAMPIONSHIP: Alabama (-6) over Kansas State
FIESTA BOWL: Notre Dame (-7) over UCLA
SUGAR BOWL: Florida (-1) over Oklahoma
ORANGE BOWL: Florida State (-12) over Louisville
ROSE BOWL: Oregon (-11) over Nebraska
So what do you think, gang? Where are the chips getting it wrong?