College football rankings, Week 13: Notre Dame, Alabama top BCS

As expected, Notre Dame is now ranked No. 1 in the BCS standings for its first time ever. Alabama, which just last week looked to be nearly out of the running for the national championship game, is now back in a driver’s seat at No. 2. And the team it’ll face if it gets to the SEC Championship Game (this is a very likely occurrence -- the Tide only has to beat Auburn), Georgia, shows up at No. 3. As it stands, there are three teams in the country that control their destinies, and two of them should play each other in two weeks. It gets complicated after that.

The two teams that fell from the top of last week’s rankings, Oregon and Kansas State, fall into the big one-loss morass that also includes Florida and Florida State, who’ll play each other next week. If Notre Dame falls at USC next week, the door will be open for the winner of Florida-FSU or Oregon (if it can beat Oregon State and UCLA) or mayyybe Kansas State, but it’s hard to imagine anybody beyond that making it in. So let’s say that as of right now, six teams still have a chance at the title game.