College Football Rankings 2012 Week 13: Teams That Deserve BCS At-Large Bid

With 13 weeks of the college football season behind us, the BCS picture is more clear than ever.

We already have a pretty good idea who will compete in the National Championship game (hint: Notre Dame will be there). We also have a pretty good idea about who will win each conference championship, or at least a prohibitive favorite.

What we don't know is who will earn those precious at-large selections without the benefit of winning their conference. With so few opportunities left to stand out, these are the teams that have cemented their status as an odds-on favorite to earn an at-large bid.

Florida Gators

When talking about BCS chatter, the point of resume always comes up—if that's the criteria for selecting an at-large team, the Gators are a shoo-in.

The Gators came in as a slight underdog against the Florida State Seminoles Saturday, but showed that they really are one of the elite teams in college football. The Gators outplayed the No. 10 Seminoles on the road en route to a 37-26 win.

With the victory over the Noles, the Gators now have three wins against Top 10 teams this season, a claim that no one else in the country can make.

The issue of a loss to Georgia in their head-to-head game is a good argument against the Gators, but Florida fans can just as easily point to the Bulldogs' ugly 35-7 loss to South Carolina.

Florida beat the Gamecocks 44-11.

Oregon Ducks

If the Pac-12 title game were played between the two best teams in the conference, the Ducks would be getting their shot at redemption and possibly a National Championship berth.

Unfortunately for Oregon, its loss to Stanford will be too much to overcome as the Cardinal earned the right to play for the Rose Bowl berth against UCLA.

Looking at the full body of work, the Ducks have a claim as the second-best team in the country. To paraphrase a line from LSU coach Les Miles, the Ducks are undefeated in regulation.

Yes, Oregon's lone loss came to Stanford in overtime. The Ducks have beaten everyone else on their schedule by double digits. Outside of Notre Dame, no one else has been more impressive. If the Ducks don't deserve an at-large bid, then nobody does.

Oklahoma Sooners

Due to the fact that the SEC can only have two teams in BCS bowls, there's about four teams that may deserve the bid over Oklahoma that won't have a chance.

However, that doesn't mean the Sooners aren't a great team. They showed that they are more than capable of playing great football against big teams with a huge overtime victory over Oklahoma State on Saturday.

The Sooners and Cowboys put on a show as the two teams traded touchdowns all afternoon in a 51-48 shootout.

Since losing their second game of the season to Notre Dame, there hasn't been much talk about Oklahoma. Now that the Irish are headed to the national championship game, that loss doesn't look nearly as bad.

Oklahoma is more than capable of providing a marquee matchup for a BCS bowl.