Week 10 of the 2011 college football season kicks off Saturday and Stanford has plenty of huge rooting interests. The Cardinal still need to defeat the Oregon State Beavers Saturday afternoon, but as long as they take care of their business, they have a chance to make up some ground on Saturday with a few particular games.
The big game of course if LSU versus Alabama in prime time Saturday evening. Stanford will likely be rooting for an LSU blowout. A blowout by either team would be valuable for Stanford since the loser would likely drop a decent amount in the rankings. The top three in the BCS have a sizable lead over Stanford and Boise State. The Cardinal and Broncos need a blowout. Given the current state of the BCS, an LSU romp would be huge.
The other game of significance is No. 3 Oklahoma State versus No. 14 Kansas State. The Cowboys are playing at home and are heavy favorites, but there is some room for an upset. This combined with the big win by LSU would move Stanford into the No. 2 position in the BCS. It is asking for a lot, but given how the past two weeks have gone, anything is possible.
Given how the BCS standings currently sit, those are the two games Stanford will be looking at on Saturday. In climbing past Boise State in the week nine BCS rankings, they have climbed as high as their computer ratings will take them. They can continue boosting their computer ratings, but it will not move them past LSU, Alabama and Oklahoma State without losses by those three teams
As long as Stanford keeps winning, it comes down to what the teams ahead of them do. Top three losses can bump the Cardinal up. Computer ratings really don't mean much at this point.
We'll have updates on these games as they wrap up and break down how they might impact Stanford when the BCS rankings come out on Sunday. This of course is assuming Stanford holds up their end of the bargain and beats Oregon State Saturday afternoon.