OU Moves to No. 1 in Computer Rankings

MORRISTOWN, New Jersey -- USC and Oklahoma still are on a collision course for the Orange Bowl. But Utah may need some help if it wants to play in a BCS Bowl.

While the top five teams remained the same after some close calls, Texas used a huge comeback and jumped ahead of Utah in the latest Bowl Championship Series standings released Monday.

Southern California (9-0), which is ranked first in both human polls, maintained the top spot and Oklahoma (9-0) the second spot in the BCS poll. The top two teams in the final standings released December 5 meet in the Orange Bowl.

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The Trojans' advantage over the Sooners is only .0183 points. Oklahoma moved into first place in the average of computer rankings, which account for one-third of the BCS formula.

USC has a BCS average of .9847 - slightly down from last week's .9895 - while Oklahoma improved from .9648 to .9664.

Auburn (9-0), which was idle last week, remains third at .9097 while California (7-1) held on to fourth at .8247 and Wisconsin (9-0) is fifth at .7990.

Utah (9-0) bombed Colorado State, 63-31, in a game that was hardly even that close but it was not enough to prevent the Utes from slipping behind Texas (8-1) into the seventh spot.

Texas, which rallied from a 35-7 deficit for a 56-35 victory over Oklahoma State, has .7904 points while Utah has .7511. The Longhorns are ranked one spot ahead of the Utes in each human poll and have an average computer rank of fifth compared to eighth for Utah.

The drop is significant because if the Utes finish in the top six, they would become the first team from outside the six BCS conferences to earn a bid in one of the major bowls since the rankings began.

Should the Utes finish between seventh and 12th, they would be eligible for an at-large invitation to one of the BCS Bowls but would have to cross their fingers and hope they appear more attractive to a bowl committee than a one loss school from one of the power conferences.

Georgia (.6810), which has a huge showdown with Auburn on Saturday, Michigan (.6608) and Boise State (.5926) round out the top 10.

Tennessee dropped from from eighth to 15th after a 17-13 loss to Notre Dame.

At the end of last season, USC was ranked first in both the media and coaches' polls but sat third in the BCS standings behind Louisiana State and Oklahoma, which went on the play in the Sugar Bowl.

LSU beat the Sooners while USC beat Michigan in the Rose Bowl, leading to a split national championship and an overhaul of the BCS formula.

This year, the formula consists of three evenly weighed elements: a team's percentage of points in both the media poll and coaches' polls and an average of four computer ratings. The formula no longer has a strength-of-schedule component - though the computers do account for it - nor are teams penalized a point for each loss or rewarded for a quality win.

The teams' poll percentages consist of their number of voting points divided by the maximum amount available in each poll, 1,625 in the media poll and 1,525 in the coaches' poll. These numbers better reflect how writers and coaches view relative differences between the teams than a straight average of the two polls.

Six computer rankings are used this season: Anderson & Hester, Jeff Sagarin, Richard Billingsley, Colley Matrix, Kenneth Massey and Peter Wolfe. The best and worst rating for each team is ignored, with the remaining four totals added together and divided by 100 to produce a ratings percentage.

BCS members include the Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10 and Southeastern Conferences as well as Notre Dame. The format calls for the championship game to be rotated among the Orange, Rose, Sugar and Fiesta Bowls.

University of Oklahoma Athletics

OU Moves to No. 1 in Computer Rankings

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