Bowl Championship Series: First ranking of 2013 season

Bowl Championship Series is in its final year. The first ranking of college football teams for the Bowl Championship Series came out Sunday.

|
Butch Dill/AP
Alabama running back Kenyan Drake (17) cuts between Arkansas safety Eric Bennett (14) and Arkansas linebacker Jarrett Lake (39) for a first down run during the first half of an NCAA college football game on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2013, in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Alabama and Florida State hold the top two spots in the first BCS standings of the season. Oregon was a close third behind second-place Florida State.

The Seminoles (.9348 BCS average) are coming off their biggest win of the season, a 51-14 victory at previously unbeaten Clemson.

The Ducks (.9320) have only played one team that was ranked at the time, but could get a boost in the next two weeks with games against UCLA and at Stanford.

Ohio State is a more distant fourth, followed by Missouri in the standings released Sunday night.

The top two teams in the final standings after the end of the regular season play in the Rose Bowl for the national title in January.

Alabama is a comfortable No. 1 on the strength of being top-ranked by a wide margin in both the USA Today coaches' poll and Harris poll. The two-time defending champion Crimson Tide is second in the computer ratings.

If the Tide can stay unbeaten, it should reach the BCS championship game for the third straight year and for the fourth time in five seasons.

The polls count for two-thirds of a BCS grade.

Florida State is No. 1 in the computer ratings and third in each poll. Oregon is second in the polls and fourth in the computers.

The race between the Ducks and Florida State is shaping up to be a close one if both keep winning. The Seminoles still must play unbeaten Miami, rival Florida and potentially in the ACC championship game, which could be a rematch with Miami or maybe a game against Virginia Tech (6-1).

In addition to Oregon's next two tough games, the Ducks play Oregon State and potentially the Pac-12 title game against perhaps UCLA or Arizona State.

Ohio State is probably relegated to hoping for the teams in front of it to fall. The Big Ten is not affording the Buckeyes many opportunities for resume-boosting victories.

Stanford was sixth and Miami seventh. Unbeaten Baylor starts the BCS race eighth.

Only twice since the BCS started in 1998 have the top two teams in the first standings played in the title game.

The BCS is in its final season. It will be replaced by a four-team playoff next season.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Bowl Championship Series: First ranking of 2013 season
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2013/1021/Bowl-Championship-Series-First-ranking-of-2013-season
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe