BCS Poll 2011: Oklahoma and Teams Sure to Be Overrated

Following this week's college football games, the first installment of the 2011 BCS Poll will be released.  The BCS standings always draw a lot of interest, as they often cause a lot of speculation to the rankings.

There are always BCS snubs and to have snubs there must be overrated teams.  Here are a few teams that will surely be overrated on the initial poll.  They at least have to show me a little more to warrant the high rankings I expect them to have in this poll.

Oklahoma Sooners

The Oklahoma Sooners sport the No. 3 ranking in the Harris poll and the No. 1 ranking in the USA Today poll that are accounted for in the upcoming BCS rankings.  It could slide them ahead of Alabama, who has the No. 2 and No. 3 ranking, respectively.

With Alabama having convincingly beaten No. 10 Arkansas and then-ranked Penn State and Florida, they deserve the No. 2 spot in the BCS.  They will more than likely get it, but I wonder if Wisconsin's thrashing of Nebraska should put them ahead of Oklahoma.

Oklahoma did beat then-No. 5 Florida State, but since then that win doesn't look to carry much merit after FSU dropped three straight games and their ranking.  Oklahoma's only win over a current top 25 team is their recent win over Texas, who may have been a little overrated themselves.  Texas hadn't played a big game up to that point and were run off the field in the Red River Shootout.

Oklahoma is a great team with one of the nation's best passing attacks; I just don't think they should be so closely grouped with LSU or Alabama with the possibility of being ahead of Alabama.

Stanford Cardinal

Stanford is another great team—with possibly the nation's best quarterback—that I believe will be overrated by the BCS Poll. 

They are currently No. 5 in the USA Today poll and No. 7 in the Harris Poll.  The question is: What have they done this year? 

Sure, they had an amazing season last season and have the No. 7 offense and No. 6 defense through five games, but those games include non-conference San Jose State and Duke and three Pac-12 games. 

The three Pac-12 teams they have played are 5-13 combined this season. 

They still have a couple tests against Oregon and Notre Dame that may make me feel better about them later in the season, just not right now.

Are they really the No. 5 team the BCS could spit out?

Oregon Ducks

I know this is the second Pac-12 team I have here and I do think they are both terrific football teams.  One of them will represent the Pac-12 in a BCS bowl game, but for now I think their rankings will come out a little high against the other teams who have picked up bigger wins this far.

Oregon has the No. 9 ranking in both the Harris and USA Today polls.  This week's game at home against Arizona State will be very telling of whether they deserve a top-10 BCS ranking, especially for the defense, which will need to step up with the absence of LaMichael James.

At this point, I am not convinced when it comes to Oregon.  I know they got the unenviable task of opening their season against the nation's best team, LSU, but it was how they got beat.

They were held to 335 yards, while their season average is 539.  They also had four turnovers and would have lost by 20 if they didn't get another score with 13 seconds left.

The team that battled down to the wire in last year's BCS Championship Game didn't look very good against premier competition.  Even with the rest of their cupcake schedule they have given up some points to lesser teams such as 31 to Arizona and 20 to Nevada. 

We all know they can score with the best of them, but can they really hang with the other BCS teams?