College football rankings, Week 10: Kansas State to No. 2, Notre Dame and Oregon follow

In June 2012, the rulers of college football caved to public opinion and agreed to implement a four-team college football playoff. A committee would establish which four teams would participate, the semifinals would take place within the current bowl structure, and they might farm out the national title game to the highest bidder. College presidents agreed to the plan.

This was, and will always be, a flawed plan. Using a committee guarantees that the politicking and late-November posturing most of us have come to hate will triple, and the elimination of computer polls ensures an even higher level of subjectivity. But the computer polls, as used by the BCS formulas, stink anyway (prohibiting the use of scoring margin from the proceedings means that we are basically just using one giant, complicated Transitive Property exercise). And if a standalone committee actually pays attention to the job it is tasked to do, then it will probably work out more reliably than the Coaches or Harris polls. It could be a lot worse, in other words. But there is one aspect of the plan we can all bring ourselves to hate with voracity: that it won’t be implemented for another two years.

Check the national college football scoreboard right here, and look through SB Nation’s many excellent college football blogs to find your team’s community.

Alabama is the best team in college football, according to the Week 10 BlogPoll. But Kansas State’s steady brilliance has earned the Wildcats the chance to be No. 2 in the top 25 this week, jumping No. 3 Oregon after Florida fell out of the top five.

The maximum points a team can receive per ballot in the BlogPoll is 25.00. For the second time this season, Alabama has received more than that: the Tide took 60 of 76 first-place votes to easily hold on to No. 1 in this week’s ballot, but their average of 25.04 exceeds what should be possible in the BlogPoll calculations. Alabama just breaks things.

Nov. 6 will not be the only election day in America this fall. The night of Dec. 1 will be the other one, with millions on pins and needles, checking BCS projections on which two teams will emerge to play in the national championship game. Only on this occasion, most everyone will be helpless other than the 174 voters in the Coaches and Harris polls.

But the spinning will come fast and furious over the next five weeks, perhaps rivaling our heated presidential and congressional elections. Media relations and PR types from various schools will try to make a case as to why their program truly deserves a coveted spot in the BCS title game. They’ll tell you why some scores are deceiving, some stats are meaningless and that you should never, ever believe your own lyin’ eyes.

Kansas State has now reached its highest-ever spot in the BCS standings, overtaking Florida to reach No. 2 after the Gators fell to Georgia. Remaining at No. 1 is, of course, Alabama, which has still yet to be challenged since losing to LSU last year. Oh hey, look! They play No. 5 LSU again in just a few days. Great!

The computers love K-State and the Irish, thanks to their scheduling. The humans favor Oregon -- the margin is very slim, however, with just .001 points separating Notre Dame and the Ducks.

The other key losses in the top 10 this week were Oklahoma’s 30-13 loss to Notre Dame and Oregon State’s 20-17 loss to Washington.

Dropped from rankings: Michigan, Ohio, TCU

See the entire USA Today Coaches Poll here:

LSU has moved back into the the top five ahead of a huge matchup with Alabama on Saturday. The Crimson Tide tightened its grip on the top spot, taking all of the first-place votes after a dominating victory over the Mississippi State Bulldogs.

Ohio State can’t play in the postseason, but they jumped three spots to No. 6 with so many teams losing ahead of the Buckeyes. Georgia rose five spots to No. 7 after their victory over the rival Gators. Florida State has also reappeared in the top 10 at No. 9.

Alabama: Allowed a TD to Mississippi State in a 38-7 deboning of the Bulldogs. With this display of complacent weakness, Alabama is clearly on the verge of total collapse as a football program. <---One Alabama message board commenter has actually said this in the past 24 hours. Not more than one, but exactly one.

Oregon: Chip Kelly’s threshold of tasteful slaughter? It’s 70 points, making that points total the answer to “What is considered the mustard gas/war crime threshold in Chip Kelly’s Football Geneva Conventions?” The Ducks hit Chip Kelly’s gore limit in the third quarter of a 70-14 win over the Buffaloes, and then actively had to try not to score to end the carnage.

The first BCS rankings component to be released for Week 10 is Jeff Sagarin’s Elo Chess system, which is a version of his normal rankings that doesn’t use margin of victory as a factor. Kansas State again does very well in the computers, with Notre Dame next up among unbeaten teams.

Florida, LSU, Oklahoma and Georgia all have quality losses, ranking them ahead of perfect Alabama and Oregon. This is what happens when you’re forced to completely disregard how good each team has looked in its wins or losses.

That playoff the college football poobahs are bringing along will be here about two years too late. There’s a pretty good chance that four teams with BCS ties (and that includes Notre Dame) will finish the regular season undefeated.

How good of a chance? Let’s put it this way: Of the 18 remaining games that Alabama, Oregon, Kansas State and Notre Dame have yet to play, there are only four in which these teams won’t be favored by double digits, and only one in which one of those teams might even be an underdog.