The Week 12 BCS standings have just been released and the Stanford Cardinal have actually improved their average in spite of struggling to defeat an up and down Arizona State Sun Devils team. Stanford remains No. 6 in the BCS rankings but they put gained ground on No. 5 LSU while also putting some space between themselves and No. 7 Wisconsin. Prior to this weekend Stanford trailed LSU by .0716 points. After this weekend's victory over ASU, Stanford now trails LSU by .0690. It's only a small improvement, but every little bit helps.
Prior to this weekend Wisconsin had been biting Stanford's ankles in the rankings, trailing by .0105. However, in spite of putting up 83 points against Indiana, the Badgers deficit increased to .0295. The increase for Stanford came courtesy of movement in several polls. The Cardinal climbed from ninth to eighth in the Coaches Poll, which makes up one third of the BCS average. Additionally, they made some important strides in the computer rankings. Prior to this week they were an average of sixth in the computer polls. This week they have climbed to an average of fifth. The BCS drops the highest and lowest rankings, which removes a three and ten ranking from their polls. However, they climbed to third in two computer polls this week, so they get to keep one of them
Here are the full BCS rankings for week 12:
1. Oregon
2. Auburn
3. TCU
4. Boise State
5. LSU
6. Stanford
7. Wisconsin
8. Nebraska
9. Ohio State
10. Oklahoma State
11. Michigan State
12. Alabama
13. Iowa
14. Utah
15. Arkansas
16. Oklahoma
17. Missouri
18. Arizona
19. Mississippi State
20. Virginia Tech
21. Nevada
22. Florida
23. South Carolina
24. Kansas State
25. Texas A&M