Bowl Championship Series, Alabama Crimson Tide | featured news

Notre Dame’s impressive win on the road against Oklahoma Saturday meant the Irish should be considered BCS championship contenders with just a month or so left in this 2012 college football regular season. Confirmation of that was unveiled Sunday night in the latest BCS standings when the Irish, previously ranked No. 5 in the BCS, jumped up two spots to take the No. 3 ranking.

Fans of college football already knew that the Southeastern Conference is the nation's most dominant, even before the SEC claimed its sixth consecutive Bowl Championship Series title as Alabama crushed LSU 21-0.

LSU did its part to make sure both the Tigers and Alabama get into the BCS national title game. Then Oklahoma State gave the voters a reason to rethink the rematch. The top-ranked Tigers locked up a spot in the championship on Jan. 9 in New Orleans with a 42-10 victory against No. 12 Georgia in the Southeastern Conference title game in Atlanta on Saturday.

Alabama and Texas get to play in a national title game. For TCU, Cincinnati and Boise State, the math doesn't quite add up but they still get a spot in a BCS bowl....

Florida, Alabama and Texas held onto the top three spots in the standings released Sunday night, keeping control of their chances to reach the national championship game.