We are now into the second season of the College Football Playoff era, and it seems like far longer since we worried ourselves with poll positioning and a slew of computer rankings and the nefarious system that crunched them all down and spit out the number that determined national champion hopefuls each year. The BCS might be dead, but that doesn’t mean we can’t superimpose the formula to see what this year’s field might look like.
The Harris Poll, created specifically to fill the void when the AP Poll pulled out of the BCS, no longer exists. To make up for its absence, we will draw upon the AP numbers yet again. (After all, this is merely a thought exercise, and the poll remains among the most definitive in the sport despite its own merely academic existence at this point.)
The coaches poll still remains operational, as do all six of the computers in use. (Numbers will be updated as computer rankings release their most recent editions.)
It is interesting to see how these numbers compare to our own Pigskin Rating System here at Sports Unbiased. If this system were back to a one-versus-two setup, we’d see Ohio State playing Baylor for the crystal pigskin. Were it to be extrapolated to factor for a four-team playoff, Ohio State would take on Utah in a Big Ten/Pac-12 showdown and Baylor would square off against conference rival TCU in an all-Big 12 affair.
Also notable would be the absence of the Access Bowl outlet for mid-majors to reach a New Year’s Six bowl game. With the top-12 requirements in place (due to the fact that all five Power Five conferences are represented among the top six teams in the BCS rankings, negating the top-16 possibility for the moment), the closest team in the hunt is #18 Memphis. After knocking off Ole Miss on Saturday, the Tigers should remain in contention and will continue pushing upward if they keep winning.
You can find the full BCS projections for Week 7 below. (As of the original post, only four of the six BCS computers had released Week 7 rankings. The formula includes all four; once the final two are entered, the highest and lowest scores will be omitted as per the BCS formula.)
UPDATE (7:17 pm Eastern): The first edition of the Peter Wolfe rankings has been released for the season. The BCS projections have been updated with this new data, and the lowest score dropped from the calculation is indicated by the yellow highlights.
With the additional data set, LSU supplanted Utah in the fourth spot of the rankings. Anderson & Hester rankings are traditionally updated every Monday, and the full rankings will be updated when the Week 7 rankings are posted at the site.
UPDATE (10:54 pm Eastern): Anderson & Hester have released their Week 7 rankings, and the BCS projections now reflect the full BCS formula for the week. The highest and lowest computer rankings have been dropped (highest marked in blue highlight, lowest with yellow highlight) and the teams have been reranked based on the complete data.
With the final computer rankings in the mix, there was a fair amount of shuffling. Baylor moved out of the top four, while LSU moved into second and Utah regained position in the bracket positions. Only LSU was ranked number one in more than one computer poll, effecting their rise up the chart. With the adjustment, Memphis also moves up to #16 and bolsters its case as a BCS Buster.
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