The first official BCS standings of the college football season will be released Sunday night, and as long as Ohio State can beat Iowa on Saturday, the Buckeyes will likely be No. 4.
It will still be too early to know if the Buckeyes will end up in the top two and play in the BCS National Championship game if they can go 13-0, but just one glance at the projected standings points to their biggest potential roadblock.
The computers.
The BCS rankings are based on three equally-weighted criteria: The coaches poll, the Harris poll and an average of six computer rankings. For now, anyway, all Ohio State BCS projections and assumptions are based on the third-ranked (by the coaches poll) Buckeyes continuing to win and current Nos. 1 and 2 Alabama and Oregon losing at some point between now and the first weekend of December.
The polls and computers suggest Ohio State can't pass either Alabama or Oregon without a loss by one of those two teams, and the computer rankings -- all based on schedule strength, win-loss record and home-away record -- suggest that Ohio State might not be a lock for the top two even if other teams around them fall.
It's still early, yes -- and too early for anything resembling a definitive conclusion. But what fun is an early ranking based on a bunch of numbers if we can't dive further into them?
To calculate the computer score, the highest and lowest computer ranks are dropped, leaving the computer score as an average of the remaining four rankings. Like the other polls, an inverse number is awarded for BCS calculations. Ohio State gets 23 points for being No. 3 in the coaches poll, 22 for being No. 4 in the Harris poll and as of right now, an 18 for having the eighth-best computer score.
The winner of Saturday night's Florida State-Clemson game will probably be ahead of Ohio State in the next coaches poll, Harris Poll and the first BCS standings. The loser of Florida State-Clemson will slip a few spots, and the only other team that appears to have a chance to pass Ohio State in this week's standings is UCLA if the Bruins win at Stanford.
That's a projection based on the Bruins computer ranking average, which is currently better than Ohio State's at seven. Mostly due to schedule strength and a lack of quality wins, the computer numbers are going to be an issue for Ohio State every week the BCS standings are released, including in the event the Buckeyes drop one game and need to make a BCS game as an at-large team.
The good news for the Buckeyes and their hopes of playing for the national title is that UCLA plays at Oregon next week, Oregon plays at Stanford, and the Clemson-Florida State winner still faces difficult regular-season challenges. All the potential contenders except Baylor would have to survive a conference title game, too. There's a lot of football left.
Right now, Ohio State's computer rankings are Sagarin 10, Colley 6, Anderson-Hester 8, Billingsley 4 and Massey 11. The Wolfe rating, the sixth computer used to calculate the BCS score, will be calculated for the first time after this weekend's games.
For a point of comparison, the current Sagarin ranking of Ohio State's remaining opponents: Iowa 44, Penn State 42, Purdue 133 (Sagarin ranks FBS and FCS programs), Illinois 61, Indiana 47, Michigan 34.
The Billingsley ranking: Iowa 53, Penn State 32, Purdue 88, Illinois 59, Indiana 77, Michigan 18.
That's just two computer ranks, and a lot can change for a lot of teams. But those numbers don't point to a lot of room for upward movement in the computer polls for Ohio State. They also suggest that a one-loss SEC team getting into the BCS title game over Ohio State remains a possibility. Even the Clemson-Florida State loser could go on to have better computer numbers at the end of the season than the Buckeyes.
Those are all possibilities, not a certainties. Please don't shoot the messenger or your television.
There are still eight weeks of games and 13 unbeaten teams remaining. The first BCS standings simply serve as a reminder that the teams that ultimately play for the national title will need to have both good luck and math on their side.
