2012 Gus Rankings: Week 13

Here are the updated Gus Rankings.  Notre Dame still holds the top spot, followed by Florida, Ohio State, Stanford and Oregon.

At the other end of the spectrum, Southern Mississippi holds a slim one point advantage over Massachusetts for the last spot.  Southern Mississippi has the distinction of being the only FBS team to schedule all 12 of their games against FBS opponents and lose them all.  Don't sleep on the Aggies of New Mexico State, however-- they have one remaining game next weekend against 8-loss Texas State.  A loss there should clinch the bottom spot for the perennial last spot contenders.

Here are the updated Gus BCS predictions (check the rules and assumptions from last week):


National Championship Game: Notre Dame (At-large) vs. Florida (At-large)
Rose Bowl: Nebraska (Big 10 Champion) vs. Stanford (Pac-12 champion)
Fiesta Bowl: Kansas State (Big 12 champion) vs. Oregon (At-large)
Sugar Bowl: Alabama (SEC champion) vs. Kent State (At-large)
Orange Bowl: Florida State (ACC champion) vs. Rutgers (Big East champion)

Following the letter of the BCS law, Kent State makes it by virtue of being in the top 16, winning their conference and finishing ahead of Rutgers/Louisville.

Swap Florida and Alabama and that's exactly how I see things shaking out after this weekend.

Also interesting to note that unless something weird happens this weekend, 3 of the top 4 teams in the final BCS rankings will not only have not won a conference title, they won't have played in a conference championship game.  Notre Dame isn't in a conference, and both Florida and Oregon's one-loss kept them from their respective conference championships.

As a side note: What if Navy and/or Army were undefeated and a factor in the BCS?  The point is moot-- the current structure of the BCS allows only 40-50 of the 124 FBS teams the ability to win the title, and Army/Navy aren't in that minority-- but would the BCS decision be pushed back by a week?