Editor's Note: Complete BCS Rankings, Week 10 HERE
The Stanford Cardinal escaped Los Angeles with a 56-48 victory over the USC Trojans and they are already starting to reap some rewards. Stanford had been dealing with a poor strength of schedule to date but USC provided them with a chance to add a quality opponent to the slate. Stanford secured the late win and has seen their ratings begin improving accordingly.
Jeff Sagarin provides a weekly rating that is one of the six computer ratings included in the BCS rankings. He released his week ten ratings and has bumped Stanford from No. 21 to No. 8. If you go to that link, the ELO_CHESS column is what is used for the BCS because it does not factor in margin of victory.
The BCS drops the top and bottom computer rating for each team, and to date, the Sagarin rating had been Stanford's worst rating. Now that it climbs up to number eight, it will be interesting to see how the rest of their computer ratings are affected by their Sunday victory. They will pass Clemson due to the Tigers loss but the question now is whether they will also pass Boise State. the Broncos were idle while the Cardinal were taking care of business and the latest computer ratings might be enough to get Stanford past Boise State.
Oklahoma remains the other question mark. They lost last week but a victory over highly ranked Kansas State could be enough to get them back into the thick of things. Their national title hopes are slim at best but they remain somewhat in the mix.
Here are the top ten teams in the week ten Sagarin Ratings according to the ELO_CHESS column:
1. Oklahoma State
2. Alabama
3. LSU
4. Arkansas
5. Oklahoma
6. Boise State
7. Kansas State
8. Stanford
9. Clemson
10. South Carolina