Sooners Check In At No. 9 In First BCS Rankings

The Sooners are ranked ninth in the first BCS rankings of the season.

Sunday, October 14th 2012, 10:06 pm

By: News 9


The first BCS standings of the 2012 season were released Sunday night, and the Oklahoma Sooners made their debut at No.9 in the rankings.

Alabama was No. 1, followed by Florida, Oregon, Kansas State, and Notre Dame. LSU checked in at No.6, with South Carolina and Oregon State behind them. USC rounded out the top 10.

The BCS standings are one of the most confusing things in sports, so let's do a quick breakdown of the numbers to determine how the Sooners got their No. 9 ranking of .6664.

Making up the BCS formula is the Harris Poll, the Coaches' Poll, and six computer rankings rolled together into one rating.

In the Harris Poll, OU checked in at No.9, earning 1,860 points out of a possible 2,850. So the Harris Poll rating for OU is as follows:

1860 / 2850 = .6526

In the Coaches Poll, the Sooners were ranked No.7, with 1,021 points out of 1,475. The Coaches Poll rating for OU:

1021 / 1475 = .6922

The computer rankings are a bit more complicated. There are six total, and the lowest and the highest rankings are thrown out, and the average of the four remaining rankings give you the total rating for the computers.

Here are the rankings for OU in the six computer formulas:

(NOTE: These rankings are from the websites for the individual rankings. The numbers entered on the ESPN site appear to be incorrect.)

Richard Billingsley- 10

Jeff Sagarin- 9

Ken Massey- 6

Wes Colley- 15

Anderson and Hester- 16

Peter Wolfe- 7

Since the highest and lowest are thrown out, we can lose the Anderson and Hester, and the Ken Massey rankings. The total of the remaining four rankings is 41, with an average of 10.25. So, out of a possible 25 points in a normal poll vote, the Sooners would receive 16.5 points.

16.5 / 25 = .660

Now that we have the three ratings from the polls and the computers, we just average them and get the OU BCS rating of .6664.

As you can see, it's a very complicated method to determine who plays in the college football national championship each season. Thank goodness college football will be getting a playoff in two seasons.

10/13/12 RELATED STORY: Oklahoma Shows It's Very Much Alive In Title Hunt

OU is far from out of the picture as far as the national title is concerned. They certainly need a lot of help since there are currently six undefeated teams ahead of the Sooners, one of which has already beaten OU. College football is a crazy sport, and there's no telling what will happen over the second half of the season.

The Sooners don't need to concern themselves with rankings and different scenarios they need to move up in the polls. All OU can do is win, and win convincingly. Saturday's domination of Texas was a step in the right direction, and if OU continue to play at that high level, they'll be right in the thick of the discussion at the end of the year.

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