Penn State and the Polls

A lot of Penn State fans are not happy this morning. The #3 Nittany Lions stayed in that spot despite the loss of #1 Texas to Texas Tech on Saturday night. The Red Raiders vaulted over the Nits into the second spot in the rankings. WHY! Blame it on the Big 10 and Penn State's schedule that includes such lousy teams as Coastal Carolina (1AA), Temple and Syracuse. If the Lions played a harder non-conference schedule they might be in the #2 spot. The good news here is that both #1 'Bama and #2 Texas Tech have a very tough road to get to the BCS title game. The Tide will have to play at #16 LSU this weekend and then finish out the season with Mississippi State and Auburn and then probably #4 Florida in the SEC Title game. I suspect they might lose 1 or possibly 2 of those games. Same goes for the Red Raiders. They face #8 Oklahoma State this weekend and then travel to #6 Oklahoma before finishing out the season. If they win back to back against the Cowboys and the Sooners and then go on to win the Big 12 Title game, mostly likely against #13 Missouri, they deserve to be in the National Championship game. Penn State only faces 1 ranked team down the stretch and that is #18 Michigan State. Sorry but Penn State might be on the outside looking in primarily due to the weakness of the Big 10 this year and a way too easy early season schedule. If Penn State would remove say Coastal Carolina and Temple or Syracuse and play a couple of major conference teams they might have a fighting chance but not this year. With all that said I still think that Texas Tech loses one of those games against ranked teams and I wouldn't be shocked if Alabama falls as well. So maybe Penn State--if it stays unbeaten--will have a chance to play in the BCS Title game in January.