While the voters in The Associated Press Top 25 poll decided to put Boise State a sliver ahead of Utah in its weekly poll, the Bowl Championship Series standings show Utah with a decided advantage as the lead non-BCS school to get an automatic BCS bowl bid.
The new BCS standings, announced Sunday evening, have Utah at No. 8, while Boise State, who leapfrogged Utah in the AP poll for the No. 9 spot, is currently ranked No. 10 in the BCS. When it comes to getting a coveted BCS bowl berth, what some Utah fans might feel is a slight in the AP has no bearing on where Utah plays come bowl season.
On the national scene, Alabama became the new No. 1 in both the AP and Coaches Poll, as well as the No. 1 team in the new BCS standings.
Texas Tech, fresh off its dispatching of the previous No. 1 Texas Longhorns, debuted at No. 2 in both the BCS and the AP, and sits at No. 3 in the Coaches Poll behind Penn State, which stayed at No. 3 in both the AP and the BCS standings.
After that, the standings have no congruency as Texas dropped further from its No. 1 perch in some standings than in others. Florida also threw its hat back into the national championship discussion after handing then No. 6 Georgia a 49-10 loss in Athens, Ga.
Utah, which held a sizeable margin over Boise State after week nine in the AP, got 1,028 points in week 10 of the AP. Boise State just edged the Utes with 1,030, but will have to really wow voters this week to keep its lead over TCU or Utah, depending upon the winner of Thursday’s Mountain West Conference clash of league unbeatens. TCU is ranked No. 11 in both the Coaches and the AP and is now at No. 12 in the BCS standings and could earn a BCS bowl eligibility if it can somehow get ahead of both Boise State and Utah by season’s end.
The other team of interest in the MWC is BYU. Despite a three-point victory over hapless Colorado State8212;the team with the worst record in the MWC a year ago8212;BYU stayed steady in the AP at No. 17, moved up a spot to No. 16 in the Coaches Poll and jumped up five spots in the BCS standings to No. 15. Air Force also received votes in the AP for the second-straight week and would be ranked No. 34 if the rankings were expanded to include all teams that received votes.