BCS Rankings 2011: Stanford, Arkansas and Virginia Tech Have Fading BCS Dreams

For most of the college football season, teams like the Stanford Cardinal have been locks for a BCS bowl game. However, after crushing late-season losses, they now have no chance at fulfilling their BCS dreams.

Stanford has the best player in college football in quarterback Andrew Luck. Even after last week’s loss to Oregon, it does not diminish the phenomenal work he has done. 

That loss to Oregon moved Stanford out of the lead for the Pac-12 North division title, as well as the chance to play in the first Pac-12 championship game and an automatic bid for a BCS game. The loss to Oregon did drop the Cardinal to No. 9 in the latest BCS standings. 

However, it will not be the reason why this team misses on a BCS bowl game. 

Stanford still has two remaining games on their 2011 schedule. One against a good, but overmatched California Bears team, and the second against the dangerous Notre Dame Fighting Irish. 

The game against the Irish will be the reason why Stanford misses out on the BCS. As the punishing Notre Dame defense will put non-stop pressure on Luck, he will be forced into making poor throws to a depleted corps of wide receivers. Notre Dame will return two Luck interceptions as the Irish upset Stanford to end the season. 

Stanford is not the only team that will suffer a crushing loss to end its season, because the No. 6 Arkansas Razorbacks still have left the No. 1 LSU Tigers on their schedule. 

Arkansas has had one of the better seasons in its school history. The Razorbacks have picked up where a lot of experts thought this team would fail when they lost quarterback Ryan Mallett to the NFL. Yet, the offense has not slowed down, scoring 38.8 points per game with the passing game leading the offensive charge with 311 yards per game. 

What is going against Arkansas against LSU is two things. The game is held in Baton Rouge, where LSU is nearly perfect, and secondly LSU boasts one of the best overall defenses in college football.

The Tigers defense will bring the heat, with countless blitzes while picking off Arkansas quarterback Tyler Wilson three or more times.

The loss to Arkansas will keep them from sneaking into a BCS bowl game ahead of LSU or Alabama. 

Just like Stanford and Arkansas, the Virginia Tech Hokies will miss out on a BCS bowl because of a loss in their last game. 

Unlike those two teams, Virginia Tech’s last loss will come in their conference championship game against Clemson. The Hokies still have to clinch a spot in the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game, a spot they will clinch with a win against Virginia in two weeks. 

Against Clemson in the ACC championship game, they will fall into the same failures that haunted them in their Oct. 1st matchup. In that game Tech had no answer for Clemson’s aerial attack, led by quarterback Tajh Boyd and wide receiver Sammy Watkins. 

The Clemson defense will crush Virginia Tech’s passing game again, just like they did earlier this year when they held them to only 125 yards and no touchdowns. 

These three teams all have one loss on their season. However, before the final BCS standings are released, all of these teams will have two losses and out of the running for a BCS bowl game. 

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Rank	Team	BCS Average
1	LSU	.9933
2	Oklahoma State	.9642
3	Alabama	.9099
4	Oregon	.8755
5	Oklahoma	.8400
6	Arkansas	.7974
7	Clemson	.6935
8	Virginia Tech	.6755
9	Stanford	.6747
10	Boise State	.5959
11	Houston	.567
12	South Carolina	.528
13	Kansas State	.497
14	Georgia	.453
15	Michigan State	.439
16	Nebraska	.382
17	Wisconsin	.333
18	Michigan	.295
19	TCU	.252
20	Southern Mississippi	.245
21	Penn State	.230
22	Baylor	.136
23	Texas	.120
24	Auburn	.079
25	Florida State	.071