Could the Ohio State Buckeyes Still Miss Out on the BCS Title Game If Alabama or Florida State Goes Down? (Yahoo Contributor Network)

COMMENTARY | On the field, all the Ohio State Buckeyes do is win. When it comes to the BCS, however, it seems like the Buckeyes just can’t win. OSU was able to move up to third in the latest BCS standings thanks to a loss by the Oregon Ducks on November 7. Oregon fell to the Stanford Cardinal 26-20, killing any chance the Ducks had of winning the national title. The Alabama Crimson Tide are still firmly in command of the No. 1 spot, while the Florida State Seminoles were able to move up to No. 2. So knowing this, all Buckeyes fans have to do now is hope that OSU wins out, and if either Alabama or Florida State suffers a loss before bowl season, the Bucks will be playing for the national title, right? Unfortunately, that might not be the case. Even though Oregon is out of the national title picture now, Ohio State has a new green-clad foe to worry about — the Baylor Bears. Baylor’s 41-12 victory over the 10th-ranked Oklahoma Sooners on November 7 propelled them to fifth in the latest BCS standings, putting the Bears nearly neck-and-neck with fourth-ranked Stanford. While Stanford is 8-1, and now has the Oregon victory to hang its hat on, it’s hard to believe that a one-loss team from the Pac-12 would ever be able to leapfrog an undefeated OSU squad in the BCS standings. Baylor, on the other hand, is a legitimate threat to move past Ohio State if it can win out. The Bears are 8-0 and just getting into the real meat of their schedule. As I mentioned earlier, they had no problems defeating easily their toughest opponent so far in 2013 the other night, so the sky could be the limit for this team. The Bears have two games left against ranked opponents — a road game against the Oklahoma State Cowboys on November 23, and the season finale against the Texas Longhorns on December 7. While the Cowboys and Longhorns are a combined 15-3 in 2013, the Bears seem like they are head and shoulders above the rest of the Big 12 this season, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Baylor won both games handily. The fact of the matter is, if Baylor wins out, the Bears are most likely going to be ranked above OSU in the final BCS standings. So it looks like Buckeyes fans have yet another team to worry about in what has been a crowded national-title chase all year long. Shaun Heidrick is a Yahoo Contributor who has followed the Ohio State Buckeyes for over 25 years. Sports & RecreationAmerican FootballBCS standingsFlorida State Seminoles

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