BCS Standings: Oklahoma Tops First Official BCS Rankings, Boise State Third

While Oklahoma should certainly be pleased with its No. 1 ranking in the first installment of the BCS standings, there is still a lot of football left to be played -- the Sooners still have six games remaining on the schedule, including trips to Missouri (No. 11 in the BCS) and Oklahoma State (No. 14), plus the Big XII Championship game on Dec. 4. So temper expectations and curb enthusiasm, right?

Maybe not.

The first BCS standings seem like the same old song: Oklahoma played a tough schedule and was rewarded; Boise State front-loaded its schedule and hasn’t gotten as much boost as expected.

That Oklahoma sits atop these rankings is probably due to their win over Florida State and Nebraska’s loss to Texas. The former is going to be a huge asset, since the Seminoles have already matured greatly from their spanking in Norman and should be the ACC favorite. The latter was an unexpected help this week, and will be especially useful if Texas plays more like it did in upsetting the Cornhuskers than it did against, say, UCLA.

A quick review of the shocks in the first BCS rankings:

First and foremost, Boise State being ranked third is a bit of a shock. It certainly didn’t help the Broncos that Oregon State fell yesterday, but most projections had Boise State atop these rankings for the first time. It seems it was not to be.

The first official BCS standings of the 2010 season will be released later tonight on ESPN’s “BCS Countdown” show, but we’ve already got a fairly good idea what they might look like.

SB Nation BCS guru Ben Prather has done the analysis and predicts the Boise State Broncos will become the first team from a non-BCS automatic qualifier conference to ever top the official BCS rankings.