The final BCS Standings for the 2010 college football season were released Sunday, and they showed a solidification of the Auburn Tigers’ grip on the #1 position. Their decisive victory over the South Carolina Gamecocks for the second time in the 2010 season trumped Oregon’s slightly less impressive win over their intra-state rival, Oregon State, in their annual “Civil War” match-up. Taking #1 in one of the human polls, the Harris Interactive, and sweeping all the computer polls gave Auburn the BCS Average it needed to increase a very slim lead (.0002 percentage point) in last week’s poll to a much larger one (.0146 percent) for the final rankings.
Either way, Auburn and Oregon, who finished #2 in the BCS Standings, were headed for the BCS National Championship Game after finishing the season undefeated.
The #3 TCU Horned Frogs, also undefeated, finished the season considerably further back in their overall BCS Average (.0618 behind Oregon).
Besides the total percentage points, the Top 6 football teams finished in the same place as last week’s rankings list. After TCU was the Stanford Cardinals, the Wisconsin Badgers, and the Ohio State Buckeyes.
The Oklahoma Sooners’ win over arch-rival Nebraska in the Big 12 Conference Championship Game gave them a boost within the Top 10 to #7. They vaulted Arkansas, who slipped a notch to #8. But that slip probably didn’t hurt the Razorbacks’ feelings much, considering that, due to Auburn’s placement in the BCS National Championship Game, it fell to them to represent the SouthEast Conference at the 2011 Sugar Bowl.
The Michigan State Spartans also dropped a space into Oklahoma’s old spot (#9).
The LSU Tigers rounded out the Top 10 of the BCS Standings.
The biggest move in the rankings for the week was Nebraska’s five-slot drop to #18 after losing to Oklahoma. Appropriately enough, the Sooners’ two-spot jump was the largest leap within the list, but they shared it with Virginia Tech (up to #13), Nevada (#15), and West Virginia (#22).
Northern Illinois and Arizona lost their final games of the season and fell out of the Top 25 BCS rankings list. Replacing them were the Hawaii Warriors (#24) and the UC-Fullerton Knights (#25).
As for the conferences, the SouthEast Conference (SEC) placed the most teams — six — in the final standings for 2010. The Big 12 slotted five. Both the Big Ten and the WAC positioned three in the rankings.
The year-end polls will follow the BCS games and all the other bowls. However, the BCS Standings are complete for the 2010 season. Set up to give bowl selection committees a more effective way of matching up opponents for the major bowls, the BCS Average is compiled for the last time at the end of Week 15 of the college football schedule. It will resume tabulating the rankings of the FBS college teams during Week 8 next football season.
Final BCS Standings for 2010 (Dec. 5)
1. Auburn
2. Oregon
3. TCU
4. Stanford
5. Wisconsin
6. Ohio State
7. Oklahoma
8. Arkansas
9. Michigan State
10. LSU
11. Boise State
12. Missouri
13. Virginia Tech
14. Oklahoma State
15. Nevada
16. Alabama
17. Texas A&M
18. Nebraska
19. Utah
20. South Carolina
21. Mississippi State
22. West Virginia
23. Florida State
24. Hawaii
25. UCF
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Compare to BCS Standings, Nov. 28.
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Source:
“BCS Standings — Dec. 5, 2010,” ESPN.go.com
