Another shoe has dropped, and there may be more on the way. Week 10 brought about some fascinatingly close games and a little more definition (though no more clarity) to the BCS championship picture. And on top of that, USC became the latest victim of the Stanford Curse. But more on that later; first the recap:

Upset of the Week: This is a tough one to pick. I don’t really consider Louisville’s victory over West Virginia to be that much of an upset – I had thought that the Mountaineers were overrated to begin with and that Louisville would be able to take advantage of having this game at home. LSU winning a road game over Tennessee is a mild upset, but LSU is a worthy top-15 team whose two losses were on the road at top-10 teams (Auburn and Florida). Wake Forest had slipped some in my ratings, so the Demon Deacons’ win over Boston College, throwing the race for the Atlantic Division of the ACC into chaos in the process, is a mild upset. Maryland’s stock is climbing and Clemson’s is falling, so the Terrapins’ 13-12 victory in Death Valley is less shocking than it would have been a month ago. So after all of that, I’m going to pick Arizona’s 27-17 victory at Washington St. This was supposed to have been the year for the Wildcats to show some improvement in their rebuilding operation, but they were disappointing early in the season. They have won two of their last three, however, and this is a potential trap upcoming for the California Golden Bears. Cal should be heavily favored at Arizona this weekend, a week before they head to the big showdown at USC, but the Bears cannot afford to look past this young and improving Wildcat team.

Comeback of the Week: This is another tough one, because there were a lot of comeback attempts that just fell short. Illinois scored 10 points in the fourth quarter in a losing effort to Ohio St, 17-10. Ball St needed a touchdown and 2-point conversion to tie Michigan in the waning minutes of their game but came up just 2 yards short. I’ll give an honorable mention to San Jose St, who scored 16 points in the final quarter at New Mexico St to beat the Aggies 31-21. San Jose St, behind new coach (and former Arizona head coach) Dick Tomey, is bowl eligible for the first time in recent memory (thanks also in part to playing the easiest schedule in the nation). New Mexico St still has not beaten a D-IA team since 2004. The top comeback of the week award, though, will go to Kentucky, who scored 2 fourth quarter touchdowns to beat Georgia, 24-20.

Yawner of the Week: Honorable mention to Air Force’s 43-7 win over Army. The Falcons scored 36 points in the second quarter and the game was never in doubt. The real yawner of the week goes to USC, who in beating Stanford 42-0 suffered the Cardinal Curse. The Trojans dropped four spots in my ratings a week ago by losing to Oregon St, and they dropped an equal number of spots this week merely by playing Stanford! The strength-of-schedule hit they took by playing the third worst team in the country allowed them to be leapfrogged by Auburn, Rutgers, Cal, and Notre Dame. Not to worry, though, their strength-of-schedule will be bolstered by remaining games against (24) Oregon, (8) Notre Dame, (7) Cal, and (63) UCLA. Cal actually still has to worry about their strength-of-schedule – they play (118) Stanford in their last game on December 2.

Game of the Week: Any other week I would pick the LSU-Tennessee, an exciting battle of SEC powerhouses that seesawed until LSU scored a touchdown with nine seconds to go in the game to win, 28-24. But as neither of those teams was in contention for a league title, the implications of that game were not as severe as those surrounding the Louisville-West Virginia game, a shootout where both offenses moved the ball up and down the field at will. Over 1000 yards of total offense were generated, and the speed of the running backs and wide receivers on both teams exploited the rather porous defensive secondaries. Were it not for West Virginia running back Steve Slaton injuring his funny bone, causing him to fumble twice, these two teams might still be racking up points. As it is, Louisville was able to take advantage of West Virginia mistakes en route to a 44-34 victory, and the Cardinals claimed the inside track to the second spot in the BCS championship game.

And with all of that, here are this week’s ratings (and yes, Doug, I fixed the formatting so you can see all the columns now):

Rank	Team		Wins	Losses	Value	STR	Last Week	AP
1	Michigan		10	0	6.623	17	1	2
2	Louisville		8	0	6.422	30	4	3
3	Ohio St		10	0	6.320	32	2	1
4	Florida		8	1	5.871	2	3	6
5	Auburn		9	1	5.364	20	10	5
6	Rutgers		8	0	5.353	76	8	15
7	California		8	1	5.191	18	9	8
8	Notre Dame		8	1	5.167	22	6	9
9	USC		7	1	5.130	12	5	7
10	Texas		9	1	5.050	37	13	4
11	Boise St		9	0	4.965	100	11	14
12	Tennessee		7	2	4.428	4	7	13
13	West Virginia		7	1	4.409	50	12	10
14	Arkansas		8	1	4.178	73	16	11
15	Wisconsin		9	1	4.148	79	18	16
16	LSU		7	2	4.049	11	24	12
17	Georgia Tech		7	2	3.925	16	17	19
18	Oklahoma		7	2	3.896	21	21	17
19	Boston Coll		7	2	3.727	26	14	22
20	Maryland		7	2	3.302	47	27	23
21	Texas A&M		8	2	3.259	64	15	24
22	Wake Forest		8	1	3.198	112	29	18
23	Virginia Tech		7	2	3.033	65	25	20
24	Oregon		7	2	2.944	68	26	21
25	Oregon St		6	3	2.921	10	28	27
26	Clemson		7	3	2.874	31	20	28
27	Tulsa		7	2	2.738	82	19	32
28	Nebraska		7	3	2.687	36		26
29	BYU		7	2	2.681	83		25
30	Missouri		7	3	2.566	39	23
31	Washington St		6	4	2.112	8	22
32	Penn St		6	4	2.059	9
33	TCU		6	2	1.976	103		30
34	Hawaii		7	2	1.949	115		29
35	Navy		6	3	1.739	71
36	Houston		7	3	1.708	91		30
37	Ohio		7	3	1.700	96
38	W Michigan		7	2	1.514	118
39	Kentucky		5	4	1.425	13
40	Cent Michigan		6	3	1.412	90
41	Middle Tenn St		6	3	1.344	98
42	Pittsburgh		6	3	1.339	95
43	Oklahoma St		5	4	1.267	19
44	Cincinnati		5	4	1.147	34
45	South Carolina		5	4	1.089	35
46	Iowa		6	4	1.068	53
47	Texas Tech		6	4	1.064	56
48	South Florida		6	3	0.991	108
49	Purdue		6	4	0.832	78
50	Kansas St		6	4	0.825	80
51	Alabama		6	4	0.801	81
52	Nevada		6	3	0.767	111
53	Arizona St		5	4	0.758	55
54	Florida St		5	4	0.662	54
55	Georgia		6	4	0.655	93
56	San Jose St		6	2	0.594	120
57	East Carolina		5	4	0.497	67
58	Southern Miss		4	4	0.470	33
59	Miami FL		5	4	0.316	86
60	Washington		4	6	0.047	1
61	Indiana		5	5	0.034	45
62	Air Force		4	4	-0.011	51
63	UCLA		4	5	-0.033	24
64	LA Lafayette		4	4	-0.045	66
65	Northern Illinois		5	4	-0.047	104
66	Minnesota		4	6	-0.152	5
67	Utah		5	4	-0.183	110
68	Arizona		4	5	-0.201	38
69	Wyoming		5	5	-0.330	85
70	SMU		5	4	-0.393	114
71	New Mexico		5	4	-0.424	113
72	Michigan St		4	6	-0.619	23
73	Arkansas St		5	4	-0.635	117
74	Troy		4	4	-0.655	102
75	Connecticut		3	5	-0.657	15
76	Kansas		5	5	-0.739	106
77	Rice		4	5	-0.854	75
78	UTEP		4	5	-0.867	77
79	Kent St		5	4	-0.913	119
80	Baylor		4	6	-0.972	49
81	Virginia		4	6	-1.054	57
82	Vanderbilt		4	6	-1.069	52
83	Marshall		4	5	-1.192	101
84	NC St		3	6	-1.201	25
85	Idaho		4	6	-1.242	69
86	Syracuse		3	6	-1.279	27
87	Akron		4	5	-1.323	109
88	Bowling Green		4	6	-1.476	87
89	Colorado St		4	5	-1.608	116
90	Tulane		3	6	-1.644	42
91	Mississippi St		3	7	-1.765	29
92	Louisiana Tech		3	6	-1.774	46
93	Mississippi		3	7	-1.789	28
94	Florida Atlantic		3	6	-1.974	72
95	UAB		3	6	-2.070	89
96	Iowa St		3	7	-2.145	44
97	Northwestern		3	7	-2.260	59
98	Toledo		3	6	-2.399	107
99	Army		3	7	-2.439	88
100	Ball St		3	7	-2.686	99
101	Illinois		2	8	-2.738	7
102	UCF		2	7	-2.876	40
103	North Texas		2	7	-3.088	61
104	New Mexico St		2	7	-3.224	74
105	Buffalo		2	7	-3.350	92
106	Fresno St		1	7	-3.642	14
107	North Carolina		1	8	-3.733	6
108	San Diego St		1	7	-4.025	48
109	Utah St		1	8	-4.235	43
110	Temple		1	9	-4.301	41
111	LA Monroe		1	7	-4.335	84
112	Colorado		1	9	-4.361	63
113	UNLV		1	8	-4.399	70
114	Memphis		1	7	-4.441	94
115	East Michigan		1	8	-4.552	97
116	Others-Normal		0.836516	8.365164	-4.563	58
117	Miami OH		1	9	-4.799	105
118	Stanford		0	9	-5.109	3
119	Florida Intl		0	8	-5.637	62
120	Duke		0	9	-5.650	60

Most overrated team: Texas (8-1, AP#4, Hack#10). The human polls seem to love the Longhorns, but their best win to date has been over Oklahoma, whereas the 1-loss (and even 2-loss) teams in the SEC have had more impressive wins. Texas can improve their status on my computer by beating Texas A&M and winning the rematch with Nebraska in the Big-12 championship, but it’s a stretch to claim that they are the best 1-loss team in the country.

Most underrated team: Rutgers (8-0, AP#15, Hack#6). The question that has the BCS bigwigs biting their nails about this week: if Rutgers manages to beat Louisville and then go into West Virginia and win there as well, would they earn a trip to the national championship game or would they be overlooked in favor of a 1-loss team such as Florida, given how low they are currently ranked?

Interesting games this week:

(2) Louisville vs. (6) Rutgers [Biggest game in Piscataway, probably ever]

(12) Tennessee vs. (14) Arkansas [Razorbacks need to win 2 of last 3 to reach title game]

(24) Oregon vs. (9) USC [First of 3 tough home games for Trojans]

(7) California vs. (68) Arizona [Last tuneup before big showdown at ‘SC]

By the way, thanks for the comments. Brian, I’ll get the past posts up as soon as I can find the time…