TCU On The Move, Top-3 Static In Latest BCS

Sports News - November 9th, 2009 - Written by John

The top-three in the BCS remained unchanged, but the following seven saw a big jumble after a day of upsets saw six ranked teams fall over the weekend.

The first three are still Florida, Alabama and Texas, althought the Crimson Tide and Longhorns flip-flopped for the second-straight week. Florida and Alabama sealed their trips to the SEC Championship game, and therefore a winner-take-all trip to the National Title game, both winning against conference opponents by at least -- points. The Crimson Tide handled a messy LSU team, 24-15, and their remaining schedule of Mississippi State, Chattanooga and Auburn poses no forseeable threat.

Texas dropped one spot in the standings, not being able to match Alabama's impressive win over a ranked team. Instead, it had to settle for a 35-3 whooping of Central Florida. But similar to every week this season, no. 3 is just as good as no. 2, guaranteeing the Longhorns a place in the title given that they win out. Their only remaining opponents are Baylor, Kansas and Texas A&M before the Big 12 Championship game against the winner of Kansas State/Nebraska on November 21st.

All three seemed to improve in the computer polls with Iowa out of the way. The Hawkeyes were second in the computer polls, but lost to Northwestern over the weekend.

But the big mover on the day was TCU, which jumped to no. 4 after Iowa's catastrophe. The Horned Frogs (.8620) pose as a likely BCS buster no matter what happens in front of them, but a loss by Texas means voters will have a lot on their plates. They would be the logical choice to play in the National Championship game against either Florida or Alabama, with the only remaining unbeatens behind them being Cincinnati and Boise State. They are each 9-0 and have three games left on their schedule.

TCU has been throttling teams all year and have a better strength of schedule than any of the other three busters. it beat Virginia and Clemson out-of-conference, then blew out then-16th ranked BYU, 38-7. It has won it's last four by an average of 36 points.

Cincinnati has the ability to leapfrog TCU with a tougher closing schedule than the Horned Frogs. If not, the Bearcats would make the Orange Bowl as the Big East winner, while Boise State would be left out in the cold. Despite having a real chance at finishing undefeated for the third time in four years, a provision only allows one non-BCS school to be automatically selected to a BCS bowl, and that would go to TCU as long as it doesn't stumble.

After the Broncos, one-loss Georgia Tech moves into seventh after an overtime thriller against Wake Forest. LSU actually moved up into eighth despite losing to Alabama, and USC and Iowa round out the top-10.

Notre Dame, Oklahoma and Cal fell out of the rankings, but it is never to late to get in on NCAA Football Betting through one of the many online sportsbooks.

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