The Alabama, Oregon, LSU (and Georgia and Kansas State?) Debate

The teams that are going to be vying to get into the BCS championship game are becoming a bit clearer.  And it may not be the what was thought to be safe Alabama/LSU winner vs potentially Alabama/LSU loser.

The full week 4 ratings will be posted tomorrow, but with some scores still being tallied, there are some shakeups in the top-10.  Here is what it looks like as of right now:

Rank	Team	Rating	Record	Schedule	Change
1	Oregon	92.383	4-0	58.701	+14,+12.334
2	Alabama	91.960	4-0	62.900	-1, -1.810
3	Georgia	91.447	4-0	58.739	+0, +4.565
4	Kansas St	90.013	4-0	61.320	+0, +6.165
5	Florida	89.191	4-0	70.640	+1, +6.816
6	Texas	85.221	3-0	64.166	-1, +2.002
7	Florida St	84.715	4-0	52.051	+5, +4.282
8	South Carolina	84.390	4-0	64.851	+0, +2.341
9	Texas A&M	83.781	2-1	65.282	+4, +3.628
10	Stanford	81.582	3-0	70.508	+1, +1.034

Yes folks, my computer has Oregon moving to #1.  Of course, the 49-0 win over Arizona is the key reason and that score was a bit inflated by some interceptions returned for TDs, but even without those, Oregon would be very close to Alabama.  And Georgia and K-State are not far behind.

And what happened to LSU?  They presently would fall to #13.  How can that be?  They won after all?  Yes, but by only 2 against a struggling Auburn team that lost to Clemson by 7 (who lost to FSU by 12) and Mississippi State by 18.  Plus Auburn barely beat a 1-2 Lousiana-Monroe.  Any non-SEC team that squeaks out a 2 point win over a team like that would get hammered and LSU should.

And if you look at the profiles of the top-4 teams above, they are very similar.  Here are the performance charts:

Oregon has played 2 meaningful games, the Fresno State and Arizona games results more or less being averaged to get to their current 92.383 rating.



Alabama has played 3 meaningful games and each one has rated near identically making one think they are rated where they should be.



Georgia has also played 2 meaningful games like Oregon, and has performed very similarly in each.



In a common theme, 2 meaningful games and two similar results for K-State.

So, who can separate from this group of 4 teams?  Georgia has the best shot playing the highest rated team next week (Tennessee, 76.5) while Alabama plays Ole Miss (72.7).  Oregon could be in trouble having to play Washington State (59.3) while K-State has a week off.  So look for Alabama or Georgia to move to the top if they can perform well against their next quality opponent.



For those interested, here is LSU's chart.  Two meaningful games and the close win over Auburn drags them down.

Thoughts?  Will the polls drop LSU?  Should they?  Was the Auburn win representative of this years LSU team or an aberration?