Questions still surround teams at top of BCS standings

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Much has changed since we last saw the BCS standings, but the team at the top is still the same.

After a 27-point loss in last season's national championship game, Ohio State had six offensive players taken in the NFL draft, started this season ranked 11th and, remarkably, finds itself right back at No. 1 in the first official BCS standings of 2007.

History of BCS

  Initial No. 1 Eventual Champ

(1st BCS rank)

2006 Ohio State Florida (6th) 

2005 USC Texas (2nd)

2004 USC USC (1st)

2003 Oklahoma LSU (12th)

2002 Oklahoma Ohio St (6th)

2001 Oklahoma Miami (4th)

2000 Nebraska Oklahoma (2nd)

1999 Florida State Florida State (1st)

1998 UCLA Tennessee (3rd)

The Buckeyes are one of only six teams still unbeaten at the midpoint of this college football season, and the other five -- South Florida, Boston College, Arizona State, Kansas and Hawaii -- have never played in a BCS game. The top 10 is sprinkled with teams that lack a history of winning championships, which only adds intrigue to the next seven weeks.

Will the new kids withstand the pressure of being highly ranked? Ten top-10 AP teams have been beaten by an unranked team already this season (six of them at home), and the entire AP preseason top 10 has taken a loss before Oct. 20 for the first time since 1950. Those, for the most part, were traditional powers -- teams accustomed to wearing a target on a weekly basis.

Ohio State certainly knows the territory. The Buckeyes were ranked first every week of 2006, and that track record, along with a suffocating defense, has helped them become the current favorite in the polls. By receiving 95 percent of the first-place votes, they are a comfortable No. 1 in the BCS despite being considered only the fifth-best team by the computers.

South Florida, which is receiving first-place poll votes for the first time in the history of its program, is ranked second in the BCS. The Bulls are the consensus No. 1 team in the computers, earning the top spot in five of the six ratings systems.

Boston College, which is 7-0 for the first time since 1942, is ranked second in both polls but third in the BCS standings.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the unveiling of the first standings is seeing the pecking order among the once-beaten teams. Despite its triple-OT setback at Kentucky on Saturday, LSU is the leader of this pack. The Tigers fell to fifth in the polls but are still considered a top-three team by four of the computers. If they win out, it's hard to see another one-loss team moving ahead of them.

Oklahoma seems to be in the next-best shape among the once-beaten teams. The Sooners moved up to fourth in the polls after a big win over Missouri that also gave a huge boost to their previously mediocre standing in the computers.

Looking ahead, the big debate sure to rage is whether an undefeated South Florida or Boston College is really better than a one-loss LSU or Oklahoma (or USC, if the Trojans start playing up to their potential). Given the perceived weakness of the Big Ten this season and Ohio State's flop in last year's championship game, some people might even ask the same question about the Buckeyes.

It's a debate that often has been held hypothetically in recent years, but the only time it was close to being a real issue was in 1999, when the poll voters ultimately kept undefeated Virginia Tech ahead of a powerful one-loss Nebraska team. The key for the Hokies that year was winning impressively enough to prevent voters from being able to justify dropping them. Similarly, South Florida and Boston College can't afford to have many close games against unranked teams for the remainder of this season. Their margin for error is slim.

Whether the once-beaten powers can keep the pressure on the undefeated teams up top remains to be seen. It has been a year of upsets, and there's no reason to believe we've seen the last of the surprises.

Notes

• Unbeaten Hawaii sits at No. 18 in the initial BCS standings. The Warriors need to finish in the top 12 to be guaranteed a spot in one of the BCS bowls. They held steady at No. 16 in the polls this week after an overtime win at San Jose State on Friday. With a schedule that ranks as the weakest in all of major-college football right now, Hawaii is nowhere to be found in the Top 25 of most computer ratings, which is what holds it back a bit in the BCS. If the Warriors are able to run the table, it would require them to beat Boise State along the way, which would finally give them some credibility in the polls and computers. Until that happens, it will be a slow climb up the BCS standings for Hawaii, with attrition (losses by higher-ranked teams) being the only means for ascension.

• The computers love the SEC. On average, they have LSU ranked second, South Carolina third and Kentucky fourth.

Brad Edwards is a college football researcher at ESPN. His Road to the BCS appears weekly during the season.

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