How the Big 10 Looks in the New BCS Standings

This week’s games resulted in the Ohio State Buckeyes losing ground, the Michigan State Spartans and Wisconsin Badgers moving up, and the Minnesota Golden Gophers cracking the BCS standings. Week 13 presents a myriad of possibilities for these teams in Big 10 play.

Ohio State’s poor defensive showing at Illinois yesterday was a large part of the reason why the Baylor Bears are now just .0013 behind the Buckeyes for the third spot in the BCS standings. With Ohio State hosting Indiana this week and the Bears playing at No. 10 Oklahoma State, Baylor is poised to take over the third spot in the standings with a win over the Cowboys. Ohio State’s only hope to stay ahead of Baylor might be moving up in the standings themselves.

In order to do that, the Buckeyes will not only need a better defensive effort against the Hoosiers leading to a convincing win, but some help as well. Unfortunately for Ohio State, that’s extremely unlikely to happen this week. No. 2 Florida State plays its final non-conference game at home against Idaho and No. 1 Alabama is in a similar scenario with visiting Chattanooga.

Two teams that moved up this week and have an opportunity to do so again this week are Michigan State and Wisconsin. The Spartans moved up from No. 16 to No. 13 and the Badgers moved up from No. 22 to No. 19. If Michigan State and Wisconsin can get wins on Saturday at Northwestern and at Minnesota, they will have chances to move up even further by taking advantage of matchups between teams in front of them.

As previously mentioned, No. 4 Baylor and No. 10 Oklahoma State face off this week. In addition to that, No. 8 Missouri visits No. 24 Mississippi, No. 12 Texas A&M plays at No. 22 LSU and No. 17 Arizona takes on No. 14 UCLA in Los Angeles. If the Badgers and Spartans can take care of their own business, they will have a chance to possibly move up into the top 10 and fifteen, respectively.

The Big 10′s new entry into the BCS standings is the Gophers who moved up into the list without playing a game. Their stay may be short, however. Wisconsin comes into town on Saturday looking like the best team in the Big 10 and a loss to the Badgers would knock the Golden Gophers right back out of the standings.

By the time the Week 14 BCS standings are released, the Big 10 could have three teams in the top 15. Whether or not that happens depends on the results of games played all over the country on Saturday.

Derek Helling is a writer for www.Rantsports.com. Follow him on Twitter, “like” him on Facebook and add him on Google+. Read more here