The first actual BCS rankings don't come out until next Sunday night, but if the poll were to be released today, Michigan State would be ranked ninth, according to ESPN's mock rankings, which are based on the actual polls out right now. Here's the full top 10:
- Boise State
- Oregon
- TCU
- Oklahoma
- Ohio State
- LSU
- Nebraska
- Auburn
- Michigan State
- Alabama
As the season goes by, the BCS will fall more in line with the human rankings because the computer polls' strength of schedule numbers will become more and more accurate. That's good news for all of the teams in a BCS automatic-qualifying conference and not-so-great news for a team like Boise State, which is currently atop the rankings.
Going forward, strength of schedule will not likely be a huge concern for MSU anyways. It will all come down to the Spartans winning all of their games and the teams in front of them losing at some point. MSU has many undefeated teams ahead of them in the rankings to overcome, including an Ohio State team not on their schedule. A lot has to happen for MSU to worry about strength of schedule numbers, including the six games the Spartans still have to win before anything that happens in front of them matters all that much. While talk of the BCS is interesting, for the players and coaches there's still a lot of football to be played.