The new BCS standings are out, and Ohio State has achieved its highest ranking of the season at No. 3.
The Buckeyes (.8926) remain well behind No. 1 Alabama (.9958) and No. 2 Florida State (.9616) in the BCS standings and will likely need one of those teams to lose to have a chance to play in the BCS National Championship Game if Ohio State keeps winning and finishes 13-0.
The BCS standings are calculated by an average of each team's ranking in the coaches poll, the Harris Poll and cumulative, average ranking of six computer polls. Ohio State is No. 3 in both polls and fourth by computer ranking average after its highest and lowest computer ranks are dropped.
Oregon's loss at Stanford last Thursday night allowed both Ohio State and one-loss Stanford (.8689) to move up. Stanford is at No. 4, just ahead of unbeaten Baylor (.8618). Oregon dropped three spots to No. 6.
Those are the facts of the situation four weeks before the final BCS standings. What does it all mean?
That Ohio State is going to need help, and it isn't coming from the Big Ten and the rest of the Buckeyes' regular-season schedule. The best-case scenario right now is for No. 16 Michigan State to keep winning on its side and come into the Big Ten Championship Game vs. Ohio State at 11-1, giving the Buckeyes a chance for a quality win at their last opportunity.
All Ohio State can do is what it has done, and that's continue to win and hope an opportunity to climb into the top two arises.
Alabama gets the benefit of the doubt as the reigning king, and wins at Texas A&M and vs. LSU play well with voters and in the computers. Early in the season, Florida State just looked better than Ohio State did, and a win at Clemson stands as stronger than anything Ohio State has. Jameis Winston has been incredible, and he's been really good on national TV, and Braxton Miller didn't play much early in the season and didn't play especially well on the national stage at Northwestern.
Northwestern was unbeaten coming into that game and hasn't won since. That hasn't helped Ohio State -- with perception or with computer numbers.
Michigan State can climb by staying unbeaten. Top 15 teams are going to lose between now and the end of the season; a few of them play each other, most notably Alabama vs. No. 7 Auburn, No. 8 Clemson vs. No. 10 South Carolina and No. 9 Missouri vs. No. 11 Texas A&M. If Michigan State can keep winning -- it plays at Nebraska, at Northwestern and vs. Minnesota -- the Spartans could be a top 10 team by the time the Big Ten Championship Game is played.
One really big Ohio State win isn't likely to be enough, especially if teams directly above (and to a lesser extent, directly below) Ohio State also win their conference championship games.
In theory, Wisconsin winning a non-conference game against a pretty good BYU team and Buffalo rebounding from an 0-2 start to win seven straight and have a shot at winning the MAC East are good for Ohio State's computer ranking and its BCS standing. But only in theory. Realistically, the Buckeyes need Alabama or Florida State to lose and even then have to hope the human element involved here wouldn't go against them. The computer numbers already favor Stanford, and Baylor's are going to get better if Baylor keeps winning. Alabama and Florida State rank Nos. 1 and 2 in every computer poll; if the Crimson Tide keep winning, they could end up No. 1 in them all. Florida State still plays Syracuse, Idaho and struggling Florida before the ACC title game, and the Seminoles opponent there remains undetermined.
Baylor has remaining games with Texas Tech, No. 12 Oklahoma State and No. 24 Texas. Wins there would help Baylor's computer ranking (currently fifth and not far ahead of Oregon and Missouri); wins over Illinois and Indiana aren't going to help Ohio State's. There's really no guarantee that Michigan wins another game either.
Stanford wasn't going to jump Ohio State this week and won't jump the Buckeyes in the next two weeks. But there's still a human element to this -- actual human voters in the Harris and coaches poll -- who could, let's say, slant the voting if Stanford is especially impressive in upcoming games at USC and vs. Notre Dame, knowing that the computers already favor Stanford. That's not to suggest any conspiracies are at play but rather to point out that computer numbers and the Harris Poll rating could potentially slip for Ohio State over the next several weeks.
This could go a bunch of different ways. It's still unlikely that Stanford can pass an undefeated Ohio State team, but it's not impossible. Maybe it will come down to Buckeye fans becoming really big Missouri or South Carolina fans in the SEC Championship Game, all the while rooting for Ohio State and against Baylor and Stanford for good measure.
It doesn't look good for Ohio State and the final BCS Really Big Game, but there's a lot of football left. And the only BCS standing that truly counts is the last one.
