Texas, Not Oklahoma, Shares Top Two Spots with Florida in OCGR

Texas, though shunned by the BCS, holds one of the coveted top two spots in this week's Official Championship Game Ratings (OCGR).  Florida jumps to the No. 1 spot after beating Florida State despite the downpours.  Also, the rankings (and previous rankings) will be based on next season's formulas and ranges.

(Ratings as of Nov. 30)

Rank	Team	Record	Cur. OCGR	'09 OCGR	PvWk
1	Florida	11-1	76.37	76.84	2
2	Texas	11-1	76.04	75.91	1
3	Oklahoma	11-1	70.52	70.46	6
4	USC	10-1	67.41	68.69	4
5	Penn State	11-1	67.05	68.39	3
6	Utah	12-0	67.52	68.33	5
7	Alabama	12-0	62.75	64.64	7
8	Boise State	12-0	61.73	62.92	12
9	TCU	10-2	58.30	59.82	9
10	Ohio State	10-2	58.17	59.21	10
11	Texas Tech	11-1	59.98	58.37	11
12	Cincinnati	10-2	50.31	50.92	NR
13	Ball State	12-0	47.85	48.39	15

(Dropped from ratings: No. 8 Georgia, No. 13 Oklahoma State, and No. 14 Missouri)

I have created a proposal to include a fifth BCS Bowl (Cotton), restructuring seven "second-tier" bowls, and including the "plus-one" Championship Game.  The at-larges for the BCS Bowls would be based on the OCGR, and the choices for the second-tier bowls would be selected by standings.

Each conference is allowed up to three teams in the BCS Bowls.  However, they can have only four combined teams in the BCS and second-tier bowls.  For the BCS bowls, the choices for at-larges will be made west to east.  The city hosting the Championship Game loses its conference auto-bids and those teams become at-larges.

We will assume the following happens:

Texas wins Big 12 (Since Texas has a better OCGR than Oklahoma.)

Florida wins SEC

Virginia Tech wins ACC

Tulsa wins Conf. USA

Ball State wins MAC

USC wins Pac-10

Therefore, the bowls will have the following matchups with the following at-larges:

Rose: USC vs. Penn State

Fiesta: Texas vs. At-large

Cotton: At-large vs. At-large

Sugar: Florida vs. At-large

Orange: At-large vs. At-large

At-larges: Virginia Tech, Cincinnati, Oklahoma, Utah, Alabama, and Boise State

Based on pure speculation, the BCS bowls would have:

Rose: USC vs. Penn State

Fiesta: Texas vs. Alabama

Cotton: Oklahoma vs. Utah

Sugar: Florida vs. Virginia Tech

Orange: Cincinnati vs. Boise State

The seven second-tier bowls would get to choose from the remainder of teams based on conference and must pick based on standings.  Also, losers of BCS conference championships must be chosen in either the BCS or second-tier bowls (choices in parenthesis).

Holiday: Big 12 (No. 1) Texas Tech vs. Pac-10 (No. 1) Oregon State

Chick-Fil-A: ACC (No. 1) Georgia Tech vs. SEC (No. 2) Ole Miss

Insight: Pac-10 (No. 2) Oregon vs. MWC/WAC (No. 1) TCU

Capital One: SEC (No. 1) Georgia vs. Big Ten (No. 1) Ohio State

Gator: Big East (No. 1) or other conference champ Ball State vs. ACC (No. 2) Boston College

Liberty: Conf. USA/MWC (No. 1) Tulsa vs. Big East (No. 2) or other conference champ Pitt

Alamo: Big 12 (No. 2) Missouri vs. Big Ten (No. 2) Michigan State

There are other rules with which to choose that also allows bowls to trade.  The remaining bowls would have their usual conference contracts.  These matchups ensure better games to help money-wise and data-wise for the OCGR.

The conference ratings received a shock when the SEC dropped to No. 3.  The ACC jumped to No. 2 due to having the same out-of-conference record as the SEC, and the fact that the ACC went 3-1 this past weekend against the SEC.

The rankings are also based on the new '09 formulas:

(Conference strength through games played on Nov. 29)

Rank	Conference	OOC Record	Cur. Rating	'09 Rating
1	Big 12	38-10	0.6496	0.6594
2	ACC	37-11	0.6376	0.6508
3	SEC	37-11	0.6331	0.6481
4	Big East	28-12	0.6062	0.6130
5	MWC	25-11	0.5856	0.5970
6	Big Ten	32-12	0.5900	0.5959
7	Pac-10	14-17	0.5089	0.5087
8	WAC	18-18	0.4968	0.4932
9	MAC	22-30	0.4675	0.4679
10	Independents	17-26	0.4463	0.4419
11	Conference USA	18-30	0.4384	0.4358
12	Sun Belt	12-27	0.4133	0.4011

To view last week's OCGR, click here.

To view the OCGR home page for more insight behind the OCGR and this week's ratings using the new formulas and ranges, click here.

If you would like more information about the OCGR or my proposals to change the bowl structures and inclue a plus-one, please leave me a comment and I will get back to you.