Kansas State Continues to Win Big, Positioning Itself for a Shot at the National Championship
As is customary, we’ll be bringing you a new take on the top 25 teams in the country each Monday during the regular season. The top 10 remained largely unchanged this week, while chaos reigned on the rest of the ballots. Disagree at all? Feel free to share that with us below (respectfully, of course).
Atlantic Coast Convos 2012 Top 25 (Week Nine)
1. Alabama Crimson Tide (7-0) (LW: 1) (First-place votes: 4)
2. Florida Gators (7-0) (LW: 3) (1)
3. Oregon Ducks (7-0) (LW: 2)
4. Kansas State Wildcats (7-0) (LW: 5)
5. Notre Dame Fighting Irish (7-0) (LW: 4)
6. LSU Tigers (7-1) (LW: 10)
7. Oklahoma Sooners (5-1) (LW: 9)
8. Oregon State Beavers (6-0) (LW: 7)
9. Ohio State Buckeyes (8-0) (LW: 6)
10. Florida State Seminoles (7-1) (LW: 11)
11. USC Trojans (6-1) (LW: 12)
12. Clemson Tigers (6-1) (LW: 13)
13. Mississippi State Bulldogs (7-0) (LW: 14)
14. Georgia Bulldogs (6-1) (LW: 15)
15. South Carolina Gamecocks (6-2) (LW: 8)
16. Texas Tech Red Raiders (6-1) (LW: 19)
17. Rutgers Scarlet Knights (7-0) (LW: 18)
18. Louisville Cardinals (7-0) (LW: 17)
19. Texas A&M Aggies (5-2) (LW: 23)
20. Stanford Cardinal (5-2) (LW: 22)
21. Michigan Wolverines (5-2) (LW: 24)
22. Ohio Bobcats (7-0) (LW: NR)
23. Boise State Broncos (6-1) (LW: NR)
24. Louisiana Tech Bulldogs (6-1) (LW: NR)
25. West Virginia Mountaineers (5-2) (LW: 16)
Next Five: Cincinnati, Toledo, Tulsa, Penn State, Duke
Per conference: Big 12 (5), SEC (6), Pac-12 (4), ACC (2), Big East (2), Big Ten (2), Independent (1), MAC (1), MWC (1), WAC (1)
ACC fans in general need to pull for Notre Dame to knock off Oklahoma, for Oregon to eliminate USC and Alabama to put LSU out of their misery, and for someone to knock off Oregon State. If FSU and Clemson can both move into striking distance, they can grab a second BCS at-large bid for the conference with wins over Florida and South Carolina in the final game of the regular season. (Hey, they laughed at me last year when I said it could happen… go ahead, laugh again!)
Ideally, yeah, you’re right there. With four at-large bids available, not a whole lot of room to get into the two-bid conversation, but it is there. Notre Dame has one spot, if Boise State wins out, they’ll be awarded one as well. Which means the other two are handed to the next-best SEC team and the next Pac-12 or Big 12 team. This can be prevented by Oklahoma taking on another loss and Oregon winning out (meaning two wins over USC, and one over OSU). Then the bowl committees are left to choose between an 11-1 Clemson team, 11-1 Oregon State and a 10-2 West Virginia or Oklahoma (should they finish in top 14 — which I say is likely for at least one of them). So, definitely not looking great, but not impossible.