One of the most important traits any college football team can have is that of patience. When it comes to the 2010 BCS standings, when a team has had an early loss that keeps them down in the middle of the ranks, sometimes it's just a matter of waiting for a big win of your own, or even better, big losses by teams ahead of you. The Stanford Cardinal managed both of those this weekend and will benefit immensely.
Following their ugly loss to the Oregon Ducks, the Stanford Cardinal football team was plugging along around 13th or 14th in the BCS standings for much of 2010. They won three straight following that loss, but victories over USC, Washington State and Washington were not significant enough to move the dial.
Enter the Arizona Wildcats. Arizona entered this weekend ranked 15th and were traveling up to The Farm to face the Cardinal. A few hours following kickoff and Stanford had absolutely dominated the Wildcats to the tune of 42-17. That win alone would likely be enough to move the team up in all rankings, particularly the computer rankings that love big wins over ranked opponents.
However, Stanford was also the beneficiary of some big losses ahead of them in the rankings. #5 Utah was destroyed at home by #3 TCU and given the lack of major wins for Utah, this would be expected to lead to the Utes dropping like a rock. #10 LSU edged out #6 Alabama. This isn't an awful loss for Bama, but it likely ends their national title hopes and would probably be enough combined with the Stanford win to drop them behind Stanford. #8 Oklahoma was easily dispatched by unranked Texas A&M and #12 Missouri was edged out by unranked Texas Tech.
This combination of the Stanford win and four big losses, will likely move the Cardinal to at least #9. In fact, BCS Evolution (SB Nation's BCS site) predicts Stanford should rise up to #7 in the rankings, surpassing Ohio State (bye week) and Wisconsin (defeated Purdue). A BCS bowl remains a distinct possibility for Stanford, particularly if they can get some big losses ahead of them.