Another week, another BCS No. 1 goes down, another change in our National Championship projections. Two more teams lost their undefeated records this week and have come to terms with their football mortality so to speak, meanwhile for the rest of the teams yet to lose, it is getting hard not to look down the road and start maybe thinking about looking for hotels in the Glendale area.
Oklahoma has the ignoble designation of being the most recent #1 team to have its hopes for Stoopsian glory crushed before Halloween, it seems only fair to have Crimson and Cream Machine get the first word on this week's poll.
Is all hope lost? Not necessarily. Consider that we are in the midst of a pretty crazy college football season. If the Sooners indeed come in ranked higher than #10 in the latest BCS rankings, they will have at most 7 teams standing between them and a top 2 ranking. Oklahoma will have plenty of games remaining to make a statement. 7 teams, 6 weeks. It's possible, but the Sooners need to be ranked high enough after this fall in order to work their way back.
Frankly this is a pretty reserved outlook for the rest of the season, and surprising given that the Sooners lost to Mizzou of all teams.
Auburn, your new No. 1 this week, and SBN's Track 'em Tigers is having a tough time containing its glee at the prospect of being the fourth straight SEC team to win it all: "This team is growing, evolving, seeing an opportunity and sense of purpose that seldom presents itself in life....a REAL chance at a Championship."
The higher your hopes are of course the more devastating it is when they are inevitably derailed. Just ask Auburn's victims this weekend, LSU, here represented by the resigned depression of SBN's And The Valley Shook: We went strength against strength (their offense versus our defense), and their strength won. Defense wins championships? Well, not always."
The BCS is a cruel mistress, and with undefeated Boise State, TCU, Missouri, and Michigan State still hanging around with Oregon and Auburn, chaos could still reign when it comes to the BCS Championship game this year.