USC moved up to No. 9 in the Coaches' Poll, No. 10 in the Harris Poll and No. 11 in the AP Poll after its comeback win over Utah and a slew of losses by ranked teams this weekend.
It has been awhile since the Trojans ranking mattered in the grand BCS scheme of things. Remember, while the AP declares its own national champion, the poll is NOT factored into the BCS Standings, which debut after the eighth week of the season.
The BCS formula includes the Coaches' Poll (1/3rd), Harris Poll (1/3rd) and six different computer rankings (1/3rd). The computers are the wild card, so the best and worst rankings are dropped for each team, and the others are averaged.
What do the computers think of USC?
As an example, the Sagarin ratings place the Trojans at No. 10, which is similar to the polls. However, it spots Arizona State at No. 9, and the Sun Devils are not even ranked in either poll.
Who should you be rooting against?
Despite the loss, USC sits in a pretty solid position. Unless the SEC puts two teams in the BCS Championship Game again, surprise Big 12 contenders West Virginia and Kansas State are the two biggest threats outside of Oregon and Notre Dame, which are on the Trojans schedule.
Most importantly, USC needs to keep winning as the margin of error closed in Palo Alto. If the Trojans can escape Seattle unscathed, five of the remaining six games are in Los Angeles.
It has been awhile since the Trojans ranking mattered in the grand BCS scheme of things. Remember, while the AP declares its own national champion, the poll is NOT factored into the BCS Standings, which debut after the eighth week of the season.The BCS formula includes the Coaches' Poll (1/3rd), Harris Poll (1/3rd) and six different computer rankings (1/3rd). The computers are the wild card, so the best and worst rankings are dropped for each team, and the others are averaged.
What do the computers think of USC?
As an example, the Sagarin ratings place the Trojans at No. 10, which is similar to the polls. However, it spots Arizona State at No. 9, and the Sun Devils are not even ranked in either poll.
Who should you be rooting against?
Despite the loss, USC sits in a pretty solid position. Unless the SEC puts two teams in the BCS Championship Game again, surprise Big 12 contenders West Virginia and Kansas State are the two biggest threats outside of Oregon and Notre Dame, which are on the Trojans schedule.
Most importantly, USC needs to keep winning as the margin of error closed in Palo Alto. If the Trojans can escape Seattle unscathed, five of the remaining six games are in Los Angeles.
The Sagarin Rankings that are used by the BCS are in the ELO_CHESS column on this page http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbt12.htm. This does not take into account margin of victory. In that column, we are #11.
Relatively speaking, Sagarin is one of the more "sane" computer rankings. In the other 3 computer rankings that are out today we are 23 (Colley), 18 (Anderson & Hester), and 9 (Billingsley) which would give us an average computer ranking of 15.
The good news is that we get to play Notre Dame and Oregon (maybe twice) and if we win those games and the rest then our computer rankings will improve dramatically.
As difficult as it may be, the best thing to root for is for ND, UCLA, and Oregon to keep winning so we can finish out the season by defeating all 3 on consecutive weeks which would sway the voters and the polls.
Beat the Huskies!