BCS Top 25 Rankings: LSU, Alabama Claim Nation’s Highest Two Spots

The two teams on top of the BCS rankings get hated rivals in Week 8. But what would Auburn and Tennessee tripping up LSU and Alabama mean? Can Oklahoma and Oklahoma State stay in the lead in the Big 12? And will Wisconsin and Stanford keep their sights set on a potential Rose Bowl clash?

Here’s what’s at stake in Week 8. All times Eastern, all rankings from the Week 8 BCS rankings.

Ruling the top of the BlogPoll is becoming old hat for the team coached by The Hat. LSU has held the top spot for a solid month, and Week 8 is no different. Eat your heart out, BCS: the BlogPoll had LSU No. 1 before SEC play even began.

But LSU’s season might come down to a titanic showdown in Tuscaloosa. The Tigers travel to Alabama’s stomping grounds in November for a tussle with the Crimson Tide, No. 2 in this week’s BlogPoll, that might determine the winner of the SEC and should give the victor the inside track to the BCS National Championship Game.

The complete top 25:

When Boise State made the decision to move to the Mountain West for a higher standard of competition, they thought they were going to get a serious BCS computer rankings boost. After all, the league regularly produces two or three ranked teams that are good enough to push BCS conference teams. Boise State’s move to the Mountain West was supposed to make it a de facto BCS conference, especially with the perpetual mediocrity that’s come out of the ACC and Big East in recent years.

While the move has been a step-up, as the WAC does not have a single team above .500, they’re not helping Boise get to a title game. The Broncos are No. 5 in the initial BCS standings, and their chances of climbing to No. 2 are looking very slim. TCU, Wyoming and San Diego State all have two losses already, and are hardly going to boost Boise’s computer profile.

According to the wonderful BCS rules, the Big East Conference still gets an automatic bid into a BCS bowl game at the end of the season. Their representative regularly enters their January bowl ranked in the low teens or 20s, and that trend seems likely to continue. Only one team from the Big East has made the initial BCS rankings, and that’s West Virginia, who come in at No. 15.

Currently, Rutgers and Cincinnati are the only other two teams anywhere near the BCS picture. While they’re obviously not serious contenders for anything beyond a Big East title and a bid to a bowl against a superior team, both teams sit at 5-1 and are currently undefeated in the Big East.

Stanford has some chances to advance in the standings with games against Washington and Oregon in the coming weeks. Additionally, Notre Dame has won four in a row, and a win over them will provide Stanford with a BCS boost if the Irish are a two-loss team when they meet the Cardinal in the last week of the season. However, for the time being, Stanford can’t really hope for much more than a Rose Bowl berth.

For more on the Week 8 college football rankings, check out our comprehensive StoryStream.

If they run the table, the Rose Bowl is obviously a foregone conclusion, but to get there, they’ll need to go three teams currently in the BCS Top 25. They’ve already defeated current No. 13 Nebraska, and their game away to No. 16 Michigan State is arguably the best on the college football schedule next week.

No. 18 Michigan, No. 21 Penn State, and No. 23 Illinois are the other three Big Ten teams to make the season’s first inaugural BCS rankings.

There’s one ACC team in the top 10 of the Week 8 AP Poll, the Week 8 Harris Interactive Poll, the Week 8 USA Today coaches poll, and the initial BCS standings for 2011: it’s Clemson. And the Tigers may be the Cinderella story of the 2011 college football rankings.

Clemson’s the lone unbeaten left in the ACC, and thus the conference’s only plausible candidate for a BCS National Championship Game berth. The Tigers will need a lot of help — losses by three of Alabama, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State, by Wisconsin, and by the winner of the Stanford-Oregon Pac-12 duel, say — but their path to New Orleans is at least plausible.

LSU tops Week 8 AP Poll and the Week 8 Harris Interactive Poll, and came in second in the Week 8 USA Today coaches poll. With that dominance of the college football rankings, It’s no surprise, then, that LSU is also on top of the initial BCS standings for 2011.

LSU edges No. 2 Alabama in the initial BCS rankings, taking pole position in the race to the BCS National Championship Game in New Orleans next January.

Among other notables, Houston is the second-highest ranked non-BCS conference team, after Boise State. The Cougars also one of just ten unbeaten teams remaining in FBS. Kansas State has benefited from the computer polls, ranking higher in the BCS than in either human poll that is factored into the rankings.

For more on the Week 8 college football rankings, check out our comprehensive StoryStream.

LSU takes two of three in the college football rankings for Week 8: the Tigers add a No. 1 ranking in the Week 8 Harris Interactive poll (PDF) to their No. 1 ranking in the Week 8 AP Poll, and look very good for the first BCS rankings of the 2011 college football season.

LSU snared 74 of 115 first-place votes in the Week 8 poll, almost three times the 25 that No. 2 Alabama garnered. The top nine of the poll remains unchanged from Week 7, and Michigan’s fall from No. 10 to No. 17 is the first major correction in the top 25.

Boise State is fifth in the Week 8 AP Poll and seventh in the Week 8 USA Today coaches poll. That’s not good enough for the Broncos’ national championship dreams.

The Broncos are projected to be No. 5 in the initial BCS rankings of 2011, but they, unlike the teams in BCS automatic qualifier conferences, face a critical lack of rigor in the rest of their schedule. The only other team in the AP Poll or coaches poll top 10 to not have a top-10 team left on its schedule is Clemson, and the Tigers have wins over Auburn and Virginia Tech and top-15 squad South Carolina left to play.

Neither Stanford nor Oregon is in the top five of the Week 8 AP Poll and the Week 8 USA Today coaches poll. But the Pac-12’s premier teams both appear positioned to be the conference champions, and the loser might yet be a BCS representative.

The Cardinal (No. 5 coaches/No. 7 AP) and Ducks (No. 8 coaches/No. 9 AP) are both in position to be in the top 10 by season’s end by winning out, but each will need help to make a BCS National Championship Game. Stanford needs losses by Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State to be in position to meet an unbeaten SEC champion for a national title; Oregon needs all of that and losses by Boise State and Clemson.

Only one ACC team is in the top 10 of the Week 8 AP Poll and the Week 8 USA Today coaches poll: it’s unbeaten Clemson that is the conference’s last best chance at a national championship in 2011.

The Tigers (No. 8 AP/No. 8 coaches) won’t be highly rated in the first BCS standings of the season if the projections for the initial BCS rankings of 2011, but they’re close enough to the head of the class to be waiting should a handful of peers flunk a test or two.

The Week 8 AP Poll and the Week 8 USA Today coaches poll don’t give the Big East any new good news: West Virginia’s still the only team from the conference included in the college football rankings.

The Mountaineers haven’t done a lot wrong in 2011, using their potent offense to run away from most of their opponents and losing only to a superb LSU squad, but they seem like the best team in the Big East almost by default. Both Cincinnati and Rutgers remain with West Virginia on the one-loss plateau, but neither has more than two wins against other BCS league teams, and neither has much standing in the rankings.

Wisconsin’s sort of a stalking horse in the Week 8 AP Poll and the Week 8 USA Today coaches poll. The Badgers won’t be in position to play for a BCS National Championship, but they’re in position to benefit from chaos.

LSU, Alabama, and Oklahoma are projected to top the initial BCS rankings of 2011, but Wisconsin (No. 4 AP/No. 4 coaches) should be fourth, and just behind that top three. All the Badgers have to do is hope that two of those three teams lose and take care of business in a down Big Ten.

Oklahoma stays near the top of the Week 8 AP Poll and the Week 8 USA Today coaches poll. But will the Sooners be in the top two of the initial BCS standings?

The Sooners are on top of the coaches poll and No. 3 in the AP Poll, but despite the coaches poll being the one of the two to factor into the BCS formula, LSU and Alabama are projected to top the initial BCS rankings of 2011.

As has become custom, LSU and Alabama lead the SEC in the Week 8 AP Poll and the Week 8 USA Today coaches poll.

LSU is No. 1 in the AP Poll and No. 2 in the coaches poll. Alabama is No. 2 in the AP Poll and No. 3 in the coaches poll. And the Tigers and Tide could be 1-2 in the BCS standings, too: ESPN’s Brad Edwards is projecting that LSU and Alabama will top the initial BCS rankings of 2011, in that order.

The second of the three major human polls in the college football rankings for Week 8 is out, and the AP Poll has the same team on top. LSU stays in the winner’s circle in the Week 8 AP Poll, ahead of the initial BCS rankings for the 2011 season.

The Tigers crushed Tennessee on Saturday, continuing an impressive run through the first half of their schedule that has included wins over Oregon and West Virginia away from Tiger Stadium. They earned 41 of 59 first-place votes. Alabama, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Boise State complete the top five.

Official BCS standings won’t come out until 8:15 pm ET, and the AP Top 25 and Coaches Poll won’t be out for at least another hour. For now, all we have to work with is the latest USA Today Sagarin ratings, a form of a computer system that does go into the BCS formula. It’s a good look at what the machines are thinking.

This week’s Sagarin top 25:

The top teams in the college football rankings continue to cruise right along, but behind them stands carnage and confusions. Sure, LSU, Alabama, Oklahoma, Wisconsin and even Boise State look solid, but continue to work your way down in the rankings and you’ll find teams with suspect issues that stand out. And for a few, those issues spelled doom on Saturday.

Georgia Tech went down as well, falling to Virginia, 24-21. Remember this is a Virginia team that needed overtime to beat Idaho, and only did so by a single point last time out.

Update: Complete BCS top 25 available now, right here.

What to expect during the BCS Countdown Show (ESPN, 8:15 pm ET)? ESPN’s own projection puts Oklahoma No. 1, followed by Alabama, LSU, Oklahoma State, Boise State and Wisconsin -- and, no, ESPN doesn’t already have an advance look at this stuff. And here was the top 10 from last week’s projections by BCS guru BCS Guru:

There’s a paucity of major match-ups in college football in Week 7. Just three games feature two ranked teams, and only one of those involves a top-10 squad. But as with every week in a sport beloved for its chance of chaos, the college football rankings stand to be shaken up should even one of the handful of BCS National Championship Game contenders be upset. And with the initial BCS rankings of the 2011 season rolling out on Sunday night, now is not the time for a collapse.

Here’s what’s at stake in Week 7.