As Alabama falls, the rest prosper.
Following the shocking upset of the Alabama Crimson Tide by the Texas A&M Aggies on Saturday, the BCS standings have a fresh new look after being released on Sunday night.
The Wildcats are now in first place with a .9674 average, while is Oregon is second with .9497 in the poll. Notre Dame is close behind with .9396, but would move up of either Oregon or Kansas State falls.
"These teams are in their order and the only way that order changes is if somebody gets beat," said Jerry Palm, of CBS Sports and collegebcs.com, according to the Associated Press.
As it stands, Kansas State and Oregon would be the national championship matchup.
"Notre Dame is not going to jump (Oregon and Kansas State) without help," Palm said. "They're way too far behind in the polls. The voters are not on board with Notre Dame."
The Wildcats are ranked at No. 2 in the coaches' poll and the Harris poll, but still have games left against Texas and Baylor. Oregon still has matchups against Stanford and Oregon State as well as the Pac-12 championship game.
Georgia remained in the fifth spot while Florida and LSU stayed in sixth and seventh. Texas A&M moved up to eighth after the win over Alabama, followed by South Carolina and Florida State at ninth and tenth.
The SEC has six teams in the top 10, the best for any conference.
Georgia coasted against Auburn 38-0 on Saturday to keep their outside chance of a national title alive. The Bulldogs are ranked first in the SEC East and the win clinched a spot in the conference title game against likely opponent Alabama.
"I think we've been improving as we go and hopefully we can keep it going," coach Mark Richt said.
Quarterback Aaron Murray was stellar, passing for over 200 yards and three touchdowns, while running back Todd Gurley rushed for 116 yards and one touchdown.
"It's a big deal and there are six other teams in the East that would have loved to have done it," Richt said. "I just think we really feel like since we were there last year and didn't do well, we want to play better. We want to have a better performance when we get there."
Amazingly, Alabama still has an outside chance to jump back in the national title picture if any of the three teams ahead of them lose. It would also be controversial if a one loss Alabama team jumped over a Notre Dame team that was still undefeated, but stranger things have happened.
While the margin isn't very close on Monday, the remaining schedule for Notre Dame (with Wake Forest and USC) is not as strong as they would like as they finish the year.
Against Texas A&M, Alabama fell behind 20-0 in the first quarter and ran out of time to recover. The team cut it to 29-24 and was prepared to receive the ball back on a punt after stopping a third down conversion with less than a minute left in the game.
But a rare mistake by the Crimson Tide, a neutral zone penalty, took any chance at a comeback away from Alabama and allowed the Aggies to close out the game.
"We played with a chip on our shoulder," receiver Ryan Swope said. "We were just trying to make a statement that we could compete with anybody in this league."
Swope had a big game, catching 11 balls for 111 yards and a touchdown.
Alabama was looking for its third national title in four seasons, but the loss puts all that up in the air.
