Ducks #7 in the BCS
The Ducks football team has moved into seventh place in the BCS rankings, putting them in a prime position to receive an at-large big. At-large bids are given to the best two teams who, despite their quality, did not win their respective conferences.
Unfortunately for the Ducks, there is still one week of football left to be played for a number of teams in the rankings. #5 Virginia Tech has yet to play UNC, a .500 team that has little chance of beating the tough Hokies. Both LSU and Texas still have tough conference championships to play in, and although there’s a chance that an LSU loss (against either Arkansas or Georgia) could put them below the Ducks it’s highly unlikely that Texas would drop much considering their overall record.
Notre Dame, which is ranked eighth, will play Stanford. One would presume that an Irish win would not affect their ranking in relation to UO, as the Ducks have also defeated the Tree (or whatever Stanford calls itself) and both teams share a loss to USC. But if Notre Dame does indeed finish ahead of the Ducks, there is a real question in my mind (and in the ODE‘s Luke Andrews’ mind) that they belong there. They are a quality team, there’s no doubt about that. In a head-to-head matchup with Oregon, the Ducks would likely lose. But the BCS is about matching up the teams with the best seasons, not the teams with the best players and coaches. And in that respect, it would be unconscionable for a team with a loss to 5-6 Michigan State to be given the at-large bid.
Lastly, there’s the possibility of USC losing to UCLA. My reading of the mechanics of PAC-10 tie-breakers seems to indicate that a three-way tie atop the PAC-10 would lead to a Trojans championship. The Bruins would be eliminated from the trifecta because their one loss is to a team that the other two schools beat and the Ducks would subsequently be eliminated in a two-way tie with USC due to their loss in the head-to-head matchup. The question then becomes if the Bruins would move ahead of Oregon in the BCS, the answer to which appears to be “no.”
