BCS Rankings: Southern Mississippi and 5 Biggest Surprises in Week 10 Standings

The new BCS rankings have been out for a couple hours now, but my guess is that not everyone has had their fill of complaining.

Hey, why not? If not for complaining, what are the BCS rankings for, am I right?

Of course I am. But believe it or not, I'm not here to complain about the new rankings. All I want to do is point out a few things about the Week 10 rankings that caught me by surprise, for a variety of reasons.

We start with the newest member of the Top 25...

Southern Mississippi (No. 25)

Who?

Who indeed. Of all the teams that could have gotten a boost into the BCS Top 25, I don't think any of us anticipated the Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles getting the nod. Teams from Conference-USA tend to be under-the-radar like that.

But believe it or not, the Golden Eagles have earned their place. Since losing at Marshall in the second week of the season, Southern Miss has won six games in a row, winning several of them in blowout fashion.

As of right now, I'm thinking of Southern Miss as this year's Northern Illinois, a team that showed up in the BCS rankings for a short time last season. We'll see how long Southern Miss can stick around.

Georgia (No. 18)

If Southern Mississippi is this year's Northern Illinois, Georgia is this year's Virginia Tech. The Bulldogs dropped their first two games, but have won every game since. All the while, they've made Boise State look that much better.

For now, what has me surprised is that Georgia is as high as No. 18. The Bulldogs' stance is a fine example of how the computers could care less how teams win, as Georgia hasn't exactly been dominant in recent weeks.

If the computers could talk, they would tell you that this doesn't matter. Well, if they say so...

Kansas State (No. 14)

I have no problem with the Wildcats being ranked at No. 14. In fact, I'd say it's a ranking that suits them quite well.

What does surprise me is that the computers are still in love with Kansas State. Take a look at ESPN, and you'll see that the computers have Kansas State ranked at No. 8 overall.

In other words, the computers still think that Kansas State is a better team than Houston, Virginia Tech, Clemson, Nebraska and South Carolina.

This would be another example of how the computers don't care how teams win or lose, as Kansas State didn't look much like a Top 10 team in losing to Oklahoma.

Houston (No. 13)

Don't look now, but Houston is inching closer and closer to a BCS berth.

The big difference between Week 9 and Week 10 is that Houston got the attention of the voters. Last week, the Cougars were No. 18 in the Harris Poll and No. 18 in the USA Today poll. This week, they're No. 14 in both polls.

There are reasons for this. Nine of them, in fact, and they all come directly from Case Keenum.

Arkansas (No. 7)

The college football gods smiled on the Hogs on Saturday at Vanderbilt, as they escaped with a win thanks to a costly Commodores fumble and late missed field goal.

Then it was the BCS' turn to smile on Arkansas, bumping it up from No. 10 in Week 9 to No. 7 in Week 10.

The problem with this is that moving Arkansas up meant moving Oregon down, which isn't cool. Especially seeing as how the Ducks are a better team.

Yeah, I said it.

BCS Rankings for Week 10

Rank	Team	BCS Average
1	LSU	.9734
2	Alabama	.9591
3	Oklahoma State	.9310
4	Stanford	.8615
5	Boise State	.8522
6	Oklahoma	.7760
7	Arkansas	.7033
8	Oregon	.6916
9	South Carolina	.6177
10	Nebraska	.6156
11	Clemson	.596
12	Virginia Tech	.568
13	Houston	.470
14	Kansas State	.460
15	Michigan	.451
16	Penn State	.402
17	Michigan State	.308
18	Georgia	.290
19	Arizona State	.236
20	Wisconsin	.216
21	Texas	.212
22	Auburn	.149
23	Georgia Tech	.128
24	West Virginia	.114
25	Southern Mississippi	.094