The BCS doesn’t play favorites.
Both teams that have claimed the No. 1 spot in the BCS in the past two weeks, Ohio State and Oklahoma, have lost games on the road. That doesn’t include Alabama, who fell three weeks ago while atop the AP and Coaches polls.
OSU (7-1) enters the weekend ranked No. 11 in the BCS. Despite beating Purdue 49-0, the Buckeyes dropped one spot after Wisconsin’s win at Iowa pushed the Badgers (7-1) to No. 10.
“We kind of expected to drop,” defensive back Chimdi Chekwa said. “This kind of stuff is expected. All we can do is continue to focus on winning. We know the BCS. Guys will lose, guys will win. We can only control what we can control.”
Jerry Palm, BCS expert for CBS Sports, said no matter how big OSU wins this weekend in Minnesota, the Buckeyes still face the possibility of falling further in the BCS poll.
“That part of the BCS standings is fluid and tends to be more computer dependent, especially since the teams in the polls are kind of close together,” Palm said. “Purdue still (has a winning record) for the moment, while Minnesota is 1-7 and one of the worst teams in Division-1A. So playing Minnesota is a lot weaker than playing Purdue.”
Palm said that aside from winning the rest of their games, the Buckeyes have no control when it comes to moving back up the BCS ranks.
“They need the teams ahead of them to lose. They are just not in any control, they’re not going to pass too many teams ahead of them just by winning,” Palm said. “You got seven undefeated teams ahead of you, plus Alabama, Wisconsin and Oklahoma. Those teams aren’t going to fall behind you unless they lose.”
After Saturday’s game against the Golden Gophers, the Buckeyes have games against Penn State (4-3), No. 18 Iowa (5-2) and Michigan (5-2).
No. 5 Michigan State, the lone undefeated team in the Big Ten, plays at Iowa on Saturday. If OSU wants another shot at the Rose Bowl, it needs a Spartan loss on Saturday, an eventual Wisconsin loss and its own road win against the Hawkeyes in three weeks, Palm said.
“We’ll just keep taking care of business and finally we’ll move up,” senior captain Cameron Heyward said. “If we win out we’ll be fine.”
But the glory of college football and the BCS lies in the fact that there are an infinite number of scenarios making each week’s conjecture all the more interesting.
