In a perfect world, the Doc would be given carte blanche to publicly torch the Bowl Championship Series in effigy and institute the elaborate, double-elimination battle royale of his dreams. But we live in the world we live in, so each Sunday the Doc looks at what the new BCS numbers mean for the rest of the season. Rooting interest: chaos. Always chaos.
• Destiny: Auburn controls it. For the second week in a row, the No. 1 team is lifted above human skepticism by the computers, which still have a little thing for dethroned No. 1 Oklahoma despite the Sooners' loss at Missouri (see below) but take a particular shining this week to Auburn. The algorithms couldn't watch Cameron Newton run roughshod over LSU, but the Tigers' fifth SEC was still good enough when converted to soulless data bits to push them to the top of three of the six computer polls, and into the top three of the others. With Ole Miss, Georgia, the blockbuster trip to Alabama and the SEC Championship Game still in front of them, the top spot in the computers is secure, and the humans will come around by the Iron Bowl, at the latest. Auburn continues to win, it's in.
I'm tempted to say the same for Oregon, but the computers continue to hate on the Ducks' strength of schedule: Even after Thursday's 47-point incineration of UCLA, they're stuck in the exact same position as last week in the computer polls (eighth), and still rank behind last week's 1-2 computer tandem, Oklahoma and LSU, which only fell to fifth and sixth with their respective losses to the new 1/2 computer tandem. Oregon is just hitting the meat of the Pac-10 slate this week at USC, which should massage the schedule numbers enough to fend off a run by an undefeated Michigan State and/or Missouri if the Ducks hang on to the top spot in the human polls.
But no matter how dominant they've looked so far, the algorithms are strictly prohibited from anything beyond a 'W' Рbeat UCLA by 47 in a grisly rout or beat UCLA by one on a bad call, the BCS mandates that the computers read only "Beat UCLA." Other than the entry that says "Beat Stanford," Oregon's resum̩ isn't carrying so much weight right now.
• Computers and Missouri, sittin' in a tree... The only team that rivals Auburn in the eyes of the algorithms: Mizzou, which also finishes in the top three according to everyone except Richard Billingsley, albeit for far murkier reasons: The Tigers' best victim before dropping Oklahoma Saturday night was either Illinois, Texas A&M or San Diego State. That win vaults them from 11th to fifth, and may put them in the best position – even better than Michigan State – to slide into one of the top two spots if either of their current occupants happen to fall out. It's always good to have the ear of powerful people.
• The Boise Slide has begun. This week, the Broncos were hopped by Auburn. Next week, it could be Michigan State (at Iowa) and/or Missouri (at Nebraska). The week after that, TCU (at Utah). By Thanksgiving, possibly Alabama. Even as they come in at No. 3 for the second week in a row, the reality of the rest of the season is that the Broncos are probably fifth in line to replace one of the current frontrunners in the top two.
It does help that future WAC victim Nevada has reentered both the Coaches' poll and the BCS and remains in pretty good standing with the computers, and that Hawaii isn't all that far off. Both have time to move up before they run into the Broncos next month. But they're still counting on a lot of teams losing to give them a shot at moving up by that one crucial spot.
• For chaos' sake. This section may begin to sound like a bit of a broken record, because the ideal narrative for maximum BCS anarchy remains (and will continue to remain) an undefeated Boise State and/or TCU/Utah against a lineup of one-loss powerhouses. Oklahoma's downfall only made that scenario more likely.
Voters will also be faced with the uncomfortable task of choosing between an undefeated Boise/TCU/Utah and an undefeated Michigan State and/or Missouri, with SEC partisans burning the torches at the same time for one-loss Alabama/Auburn/LSU. And if the computer's affection for Missouri remains strong enough to somehow edge the Tigers ahead of human favorite Oregon before or after the Big 12 Championship Game, it won't just be the West Coast lobbying for a system override.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
