Guru: Loss Drops Penn State to No. 6, Ahead of USC

It's almost a lock that the Bowl Championship Series title game will feature teams from the Southeastern Conference and the Big 12 South Division.

Then again, we are talking BCS.

First, the projected standings from Sam Chi, the BCS Guru:

1. Alabama, 2. Texas Tech, 3. Texas, 4. Florida, 5. Oklahoma, 6. Penn State, 7. USC, 8. Utah, 9. Ohio State, 10. Boise State, 11. Oklahoma State, 12. Georgia, 13. Missouri, 14. Michigan State, 15. Brigham Young.

The team taking the hit, of course, is Penn State, which lost at Iowa, 24-23. However, the Guru projects the Nittany Lions will fall only to No. 6, a spot ahead of USC. Trojan fans can't be pleased.

Penn State isn't out of it. A year ago, Ohio State dropped to No. 7 in the BCS after a Nov. 10 home loss to Illinois and ended up climbing back to No. 1. But a lot is going to have to break in favor of the Nittany Lions.

Alabama and Florida are headed for a matchup in the SEC title game. The Crimson Tide will be favored to defeat Mississippi State and Auburn at Tuscaloosa to complete the regular season. The Gators must beat South Carolina and always tough Citadel in Gainesville, then meet Florida State in Tallahassee.

Texas Tech controls the Big 12 South, but the Red Raiders must defeat Oklahoma in Norman and Baylor in Lubbock. Beating the Sooners will take some doing and if Texas Tech loses, it likely sets up a three-way tie between the Red Raiders, Oklahoma and Texas.

As explained last week, the Big 12 tiebreaking procedure would be the highest-ranked team in the BCS standings after completion of regular season conference play.

Sam missed on one last week, picking Penn State to be in the No. 2 slot ahead of Texas Tech. Instead, the order was reversed. That prompted Sam to go back through the archives and give himself an accountability test. As you can see on this link, he remains an A-student.

Comments

[Me]

I think PsU gets nailed for that loss and ends up just ahead of Ohio St.