The final BCS standings are now out, and here at Bankroll Sports, we are analyzing the final BCS rankings. We have our final BCS rankings ready to go and have all of our BCS bowl predictions set now that all of the games are said and done with.

Current BCS Rankings & BCS Standings (as of 12/2/2012)

The BCS selections are just a formality at this point, and we knew once the SEC Championship Game was said and done with that the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish were going to be playing against one another. The two were easily the two highest ranked teams in the final BCS rankings, and they are going to be playing against one another in the BCS Championship Game in Miami.

But the shock of shocks came out when the Northern Illinois Huskies busted the BCS. Head Coach Frank Doeren won’t be coaching the Huskies, knowing that he has already taken the job with the NC State Wolfpack, but he is going to be there in spirit with his team, which finished out the campaign at 12-1 as the MAC Champions and will be getting the huge payday by going to the Orange Bowl. NIU finished out the year ranked 15th in the BCS, and thanks to the fact that there were not just one, but two conference winners that didn’t finish in the BCS Top 16, the Huskies became automatic qualifiers. Their foes will be the automatic qualifiers out of the ACC, the Florida State Seminoles, who have underachieved all year long at 11-2.

Pretty much everything fell into place from there. The Rose Bowl will pit the Pac-12 champs, the Stanford Cardinal against the Big Ten winners, the Wisconsin Badgers, who got into the BCS this year in spite of the fact that they finished the year with five losses. Meanwhile, the Fiesta Bowl was a very easy matchup to forecast, as the Kansas State Wildcats were automatic qualifiers to the BCS as the Big XII champs. This was also the only logical bowl game for the 11-1 Oregon Ducks to go to this year once they were beaten by Stanford, thus ultimately shutting them out of the Rose Bowl.

The Sugar Bowl was the bowl game that really ended up getting the shaft from the fact that the Huskies got into the BCS. Instead of getting a big conference school with a great travel record, the Louisville Cardinals are dropping into this bowl game since the Sugar Bowl would rather get Louisville than NIU. At least the matchup has a bit of intrigue to it, as Head Coach Charlie Strong is going to be coaching against the team that he made a name for himself with, the Florida Gators. UF was the third team out of the SEC this year, but thanks to finishing 11-1, as opposed to the 11-2 mark of the Georgia Bulldogs, it’s the blue and orange instead of the Dawgs that have gotten the last bid to the BCS.

As far as the rest of the BCS rankings this year, there were definitely some interesting items to note. The Top 5 teams in the country are all in the BCS, but the teams ranked from seventh (Georgia Bulldogs) down to 11th (Oklahoma Sooners) were left out of the party due to their conference affiliation. The SEC finished with seven teams ranked in the Top 10 in the land. Oklahoma was clearly the team that was left out of the BCS when Northern Illinois got in. Oregon State was also ineligible due to the fact that the Pac-12 had a pair of teams already in the BCS, but it finished outside of the Top 12 anyway. No other team would have been eligible to get into the BCS.

Northern Illinois just barely finished in front of the Nebraska Cornhuskers, who came in as the top ranked team in the Big Ten, while the champs of the conference, Wisconsin, didn’t ultimately finish ranked in the BCS. The Big East was up in the air to have a Top 25 team, but the Louisville Cardinals got into the final rankings and finished 21st.

Aside from this though, there are a heck of a lot of teams from outside of the AQ conferences that finished ranked in the Top 25. Not only did Northern Illinois finish 15th, but the Boise State Broncos (19th), Utah State Aggies (22nd), San Jose State Spartans (24th), and Kent State Golden Flashes (25th) all finished in the Top 25 as well. There were a total of four teams this year in the MAC and three in the WAC that were ranked in the Top 25 at some point, and that’s a real testament to what a fantastic year these two conferences had.

Final BCS Bowl Games
BCS National Championship Game: #1 Notre Dame Fighting Irish vs. #2 Alabama Crimson Tide
Sugar Bowl: #3 Florida Gators vs. #21 Louisville Cardinals
Rose Bowl: #6 Stanford Cardinal vs. Wisconsin Badgers
Fiesta Bowl: #4 Oregon Ducks vs. #5 Kansas State Wildcats
Orange Bowl: #12 Florida State Seminoles vs. #15 Northern Illinois Huskies