Every week I have been blindly looking at the bulk BCS standings and assuming that the Cincinnati Bearcats would pass the TCU Horned Frogs when their end of the season strength of schedule comes into play.  Certainly I thought their schedule strength would push them over the top in the computers and ahead of TCU.

Well, I have gotten out my abacus and looked at the actual components of the BCS formula.  Cincinnati is already ahead of TCU in all but one computer, one that currently gets thrown out for both teams when the highest and lowest computers for each team is thrown out.

If the problem is not the computers it must be the voters.  Given a lead of 0.0400 in the computers Cincinnati will need to trail by less than 0.0200 in the polls to pass TCU.

TCU is in the MWC and Cincinnati is in the Big East, certainly bias towards the traditional conference powers will reemerge in the human polls right?  Well (right or wrong) the MWC is also perceived as a conference on the rise and the Big East as one whose glory days have left for the ACC. 

Unfortunately for Cincinnati this is also when their football program first started to rise.  They were invited to upgrade their football to the Big East as they recovered from the defections to the ACC.  Many people still see Cincinnati as a basketball power trying to move into football.  It's almost like if Duke got a hot streak in football going, only with success.

TCU was once a member of the mighty SWC that made the Cotton Bowl great.  They even have a national championship from 70 years ago.  TCU has some pedigree as a football team that is older than this century.

What then will Cincinnati need to pass TCU?

If Texas wins the argument is meaningless.  This only has significance if Texas loses. Oh, and Cincinnati needs to beat Pittsburgh.  The SEC champion will be the consensus #1 and only TCU and Cincinnati will be in contention for the #2 spot.

In that case the computers would be in lock step for the top three (once the highest and lowest for each team are removed):

1) SEC Champion
2) Cincinnati
3) TCU

The SEC runner up, Boise State and Texas would be tangled up for the 4-6 positions.

TCU is currently 0.0400 behind in the computers, and will be 0.0400 behind in the computers after this week.

The Harris poll had 113 voters and TCU leads by 130 points, for a score of 0.0460.  After this week TCU will likely lose some of that excess over 113 due to the movements of Alabama, Florida and Texas.  This will likely narrow the lead to near 0.0389.

The Coaches poll has 59 voters and TCU has a 54 point lead, for a score of 0.0366.  The jostling from Alabama, Florida and Texas is likely to be less pronounced here.

This would give TCU a lead in the poll component of 0.0378.  Cincinnati would need to gain an additional 0.0178 to pass TCU.  At this point most ballots would have Cincinnati and TCU adjacent in the standings with TCU currently ahead.  Swapping them would give Cincinnati a boost of two points, one for Cincinnati's gain and one for TCU's loss.

This results in an additional 22.2% of the voters jumping Cincinnati over TCU being required for Cincinnati to pass TCU.   That is 13 coaches and 25 Harris Poll voters, with one coach counting for roughly 2 Harris voters.  This is close to what I would expect to see so the final results could be well within a handful votes.

And the voters would know it.  This is a moral hazard that a robust system should not have.

The vote is close enough that a few rogue voters could swing the vote.  So what would a rogue ballot look like?  Glad you asked!  (P.S. what ever you do, DON'T LET ANY OF THE 25 AT LARGE CONFERENCE COACHES WITH A VOTE OR THE 40 HARRIS VOTERS SELECTED BY THE AT LARGE CONFERENCES SEE THIS)

1) SEC #1
2) Team you want in
3) Boise State or SEC #2
4) SEC #2 or Boise State
5) The other team

Such a ballot would be justifiably reasonable, though large numbers of such ballots would hint that something is afoot, and basically cast two votes the favored team.