What the BCS Top 25 standings would look like ahead of Week 8 of college football

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: it was another wild weekend of college football. While the upsets were less frequent than the previous couple of weeks (many of the top teams had bye weeks), Purdue’s dominant performance over Iowa once again shook up the very top of the rankings, including in a simulation of what the BCS rankings would look like.

The first four teams remain the same as the AP Poll, but there is an interesting, consequential flip within the four teams. As it currently stands in the BCS rankings, Georgia and Oklahoma would have played for a national championship. Oklahoma’s offense looks like the Sooners offenses of the past under the new leadership of Caleb Williams and watching Oklahoma’s offense against Georgia’s defense would surely be entertaining. 

Unlike the BCS rankings, the AP Poll has Cincinnati second after Week 7. It is their highest ranking in school history. 

After the first few teams, the BCS rankings stray more substantially from the AP rankings than they have in recent weeks:

1. Georgia Bulldogs (7-0)
2. Oklahoma Sooners (7-0)
3. Cincinnati Bearcats (6-0)
4. Alabama Crimson Tide (6-1)
5. Michigan Wolverines (6-0)
6. Ohio State Buckeyes (6-0)
7. Oklahoma State Cowboys (6-0)
8. Penn State Nittany Lions (5-1)
9. Iowa Hawkeyes (6-1)
10. Michigan State Spartans (7-0)
11. Notre Dame Fighting Irish (5-1)
12. Kentucky Wildcats (6-1)
13. Ole Miss Rebels (5-1)
14. Oregon Ducks (5-1)
15. Coastal Carolina Chanticleers (6-0)
16. Wake Forest Demon Deacons (6-0)
17. Texas A&M Aggies (5-2)
18. Baylor Bears (6-1)
19. Auburn Tigers (5-2)
20. NC State Wolfpack (5-1)
21. SMU Mustangs (6-0)
22. San Diego State Aztecs (6-0)
23. Pittsburgh Panthers (5-1)
24. UTSA Roadrunners (7-0)
25. Iowa State Cyclones (4-2)

The Big Ten continues to pepper the top 10. They have five teams ranked in the BCS rankings, and all five are in the first 10 spots. There is less than two weeks until the Big Ten East ranked-versus-ranked matchups start. Oct. 30 will feature Michigan at Michigan State and Penn State at Ohio State. The Buckeyes have a test at Indiana this weekend first, a team that challenged Sparty last weekend and nearly pulled off the upset. 

The computers do not like Oregon. After beating Ohio State in Columbus for what remains one of the best wins in college football this season, the Ducks lost to Stanford and narrowly escaped a now 1-5 Cal team without an FBS win. The BCS rankings have Oregon four spots behind their No. 10 AP ranking. After Utah scored 28-unanswered points to beat Arizona State late on Saturday night, Oregon is the only representative from the Pac-12 in these BCS rankings.

The computers do, however, like Kentucky. The Wildcats fell to Georgia in Athens, but they kept the game close through a half. They scored a couple of touchdowns against a defense that had previously allowed just two all year, and their defense avoided embarrassment. Kentucky fell to No. 15 in the AP Poll, but they are still listed at No. 12 in these rankings.

Iowa State has a pulse again after two early season losses to Iowa and Baylor, which is good news for Oklahoma and Oklahoma State’s resumes should they be able to topple the Cyclones. With running back Breece Hall back on track after a slow start, head Coach Matt Campbell’s team could still compete for a Big 12 title berth. They are not ranked in the AP Poll, but they snuck into the No. 25 spot here. They host Oklahoma State on Saturday.

With UTSA’s move into the Top 25 in both this poll and the AP Poll, all undefeated teams are accounted for in the rankings. In total, there are five teams from the Group of Five in the BCS rankings, and two of them appear before any team from the ACC.

From BCS to CFP

Prior to the current CFP system, college football was governed by the BCS, whose final rankings were computer generated, and two teams faced off in the national championship to conclude the season. The system also created matchups for four additional prestigious bowl games: the Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl. 

The BCS formula used a number of factors to produce its list. There were three components to the rankings, with a mix of human and computer generated thoughts: the Harris Poll, the Coaches Poll and the computer rankings. All three parts were weighted equally. 

The Harris and Coaches Polls had values assigned to each spot in reverse order. For example, in the Harris Poll of 25 teams, the top team receives 25 points, the second team receives 24 points, etc. The Coaches Poll had a similar scoring system, although there were fewer voters involved.

The third part, the computer rankings, included six additional polls: Anderson & Hester, Richard Billingsley, Colley Matrix, Kenneth Massey, Jeff Sagarin’s USA Today and Peter Wolfe. In the end, the final values assigned to each team in the three categories are averaged, and the BCS rankings were produced.

Beginning in 2014, the CFP replaced the BCS. Two semifinal games are played around New Year’s Day, and the games take place on a rotating basis at six of the country’s top bowls – the Cotton Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl, Peach Bowl, Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl. The two winners advance to the College Football Playoff National Championship. That game is played on a Monday night in the second week of January.

The CFP selection process is more subjective than the BCS, as the teams are decided upon by 13 people and there is no longer a strict computer component. The selection committee is composed of athletic directors, former coaches and student-athletes, and others in the college administration world. The current chair of the committee is Gary Barta, the athletic director at Iowa.

“The selection committee ranks the teams based on the members’ evaluation of the teams’ performance on the field, using conference championships won, strength of schedule, head-to-head results, and comparison of results against common opponents to decide among teams that are comparable,” the website says.

Additionally, there is a board of governors made up of presidents and chancellors from the 10 FBS conferences plus Notre Dame which governs the administrative actions of the CFP.

Alabama is the reigning national champion and holds the most CFP wins at eight. In total, the SEC and the ACC each have eight playoff appearances, driven largely by Alabama and Clemson’s near-constant presence at the top in recent years. Technically, all FBS teams have equal access to the playoff; there are no automatic qualifiers. 

College football remains the only college sport in the country without an officially NCAA-sanctioned championship. At its core, the CFP is really a television contract currently owned by ESPN.