BCS Rankings 2011: Midlevel Upsets Won't Impact National Championship Race

Week 10 of the 2011 college football season has been chock-full of upsets, though, few of them figure to have much bearing whatsoever on who plays for the BCS national championship.

The Big Ten underwent a bit of reshuffling on Saturday, but lost its shot at a crystal football. No. 10 Nebraska, the conference's best bet to emerge as a dark horse in the national title hunt, followed up a huge home win over No. 17 Michigan State last weekend with a disappointing result against a sneaky Northwestern team in Lincoln, 28-25. Ironically enough, Cornhuskers quarterback Taylor Martinez had his best passing game of the year, and the second-best of his career.

Unfortunately, that wasn't quite enough to make up for the poor play of the Blackshirts, who let up 468 total yards to the Wildcats. Now, with two defeats on their record, the Huskers will need much more than a wing and a prayer just to get a word in edgewise in the BCS title conversation.

It would be irresponsible to chalk up Big Red's big loss to a case of new-conference jitters, though. No. 15 Michigan, a conference stalwart and another lunk of the so-called Legends Division, tripped over its own shoelace on the way to a 24-16 loss to Iowa at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City. Poor play from the quarterback position came back to bite the Wolverines, as Denard Robinson managed as many turnovers as touchdowns (two) in what was an altogether underwhelming offensive performance by the maize and blue.

Not that Michigan looked anything like a serious player to hoist the crystal football, not after losing to Michigan State, but whatever slim hopes Brady Hoke's boys had of doing so went right out the window and into the Iowa River this weekend.

And for those few delusional fans in Morgantown who thought anything memorable would come of Dana Holgorsen's first season at West Virginia, Saturday was nothing short of a devastation, as their beloved Mountaineers melted under the intense pressure of playing...Louisville?

At home?

Eh, well. I'm sure they'll have more fun in the Big 12 anyway, seeing as how they can't seem to hang in the Big East anymore.

Or in the BCS, for that matter. It seems like very few teams in the middle of the rankings can these days.