An idea gains credence: BCS is BYU country

Three answers to three questions emanating from the first question-filled weekend of the season:

All the answers, incredibly, are “yes.”

Can Brigham Young, a member of the Mountain West Conference, win the national championship this season?

Is USC, which suffered a humiliating Thursday night defeat in Corvallis to 25 1/2 -point underdog Oregon State, back in the Bowl Championship Series title race?

Is the Big 12 Conference better right now than the Southeastern?

Yes, yes and yes.

No?

Let’s take these in order:

1: BYU. The general assumption for years has been that a school from outside the six power conferences had no chance of ever ascending to No. 1 or No. 2 in the BCS standings, which would guarantee that school a spot in the national-title game.

Schools from the five conferences whose champions do not receive automatic bids to BCS games have been fighting for years, sometimes with lawyers at their sides, for better access into a system that has been called a monopoly.

But take a look at Sunday’s college football polls. BYU, which was Bye-YU this weekend, benefited from key losses involving several top teams to jump four spots, to No. 7 in the USA Today coaches’ poll.

The Cougars are No. 8 in the Associated Press media poll, which is no longer a part of the BCS standings, and No. 9 in the first Harris Interactive Poll. Harris has replaced the AP survey in the BCS formula.

BYU, which won the national title in 1984 with a victory over a mediocre Michigan team in the Holiday Bowl, appears to have a legitimate chance to get to this season’s BCS title game, to be played Jan. 8 in South Florida.

BYU has a couple of tough games left, at Texas Christian on Oct. 16 and at No. 15 Utah on Nov. 22.

On the credibility front, the Mountain West is 5-0 against the Pac-10 this year with a chance to make it 6-0 Thursday when Utah plays host to Oregon State.

This could get real interesting. Four teams ahead of BYU in the polls play each other. Oklahoma and Texas go at it in Dallas on Oct. 11 while Alabama and Louisiana State meet Nov. 8 in Baton Rouge.

If everybody else loses and BYU keeps winning, why can’t the Cougars end up No. 1 or No. 2?

The question then might turn to BYU’s strength in the BCS computers.

What if BYU ended up No. 1 in both polls but No. 3 in the BCS?

Hey, it happened in 2003 to USC.

Stay tuned.

2: USC. As horrid as that loss at Oregon State seemed at the time, and it was a four-star stinker, the Trojans dropped to only No. 9 in the AP and USA Today polls and debuted at No. 7 in the Harris poll.

USC has an immediate chance to earn back BCS brownie points this weekend when it plays host to respected Oregon, which rebounded from a home loss to Boise State to throttle Washington State. Because the Ducks are now back in the AP poll, at No. 23, USC has a chance to defeat a ranked Pac-10 opponent.

Of course, if USC’s offensive and defensive lines are manhandled by Oregon the way they were against Oregon State, and Joe McKnight continues to play hot potato with the football, the Trojans’ title chase will be over Saturday night.

3. The Big 12 is better than the SEC. There, it might be sacrilege, but it’s been said. We’ll only add this caveat. The Big 12 is better right now. The conference has four of the top seven schools ranked in this week’s AP poll.

Oklahoma, which battered No. 24 Texas Christian in Norman, is the new No. 1, supplanting USC, with Missouri and Texas checking in at Nos. 4 and 5 and Texas Tech moving up three positions to No. 7.

The SEC, which two weeks ago boasted a record five schools in the AP top 10, now boasts only two, with Alabama at No. 2 followed by Louisiana State.

The USA Today coaches were not as impressed with Alabama’s 41-30 win at Georgia, elevating the Crimson Tide to No. 4 behind Oklahoma, LSU and Missouri.

Alabama received only two first-place votes in the coaches’ poll compared with 21 first-place votes received in the AP poll.

Alabama debuted at No. 3 in the Harris poll, receiving seven first-place votes compared with 102 for Oklahoma.

Weekend wrap

Just asking: Will voters who don’t want to see Ohio State in a third straight national title game make sure the Buckeyes are left out of the equation? Despite all the poll movement this weekend, Ohio State did not budge from its No. 14 spot in the AP survey despite a 13-point win against previously undefeated Minnesota. Ohio State moved up one position, to No. 12, in the coaches’ poll, and debuted at No. 14 in Harris.

BYU, conversely, did not play but moved up three spots in the AP poll and four spots in the coaches’.

Glory Day. Boston College rocks, at least it did Saturday, as rock superstar Bruce Springsteen and wife Patti Scialfa attended parents weekend in Chestnut Hill and were treated to a 42-0 victory over Rhode Island. The couple’s son, Evan, is a freshman at BC.

You can often monitor a coach’s job status by tracking the attendance at home games. Greg Robinson’s Syracuse squad drew an announced crowd of 27,549 for Saturday’s 34-24 home loss to Pittsburgh. Seating capacity at the Carrier Dome is listed at 49,262.

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chris.dufresne@latimes.com

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Play it forward

Five things to watch for this week in college football.

1. Whoever said college football was meant to be played at 1 p.m. on Saturday obviously never met a cable television executive. This week there are games on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, which could affect slow-pitch softball leagues, church choir practices, grocery shopping and helping Jimmy with his homework.

2. One-loss schools looking stay in the national-title race will have some points-scoring opportunities next weekend. No. 14 Ohio State at No. 18 Wisconsin and No. 23 Oregon at No. 9 USC are effectively elimination matches. So, probably, is No. 13 Auburn at No. 19 Vanderbilt.

3. Games we thought we were looking forward to this weekend but no longer are include three-loss Rutgers at two-loss West Virginia in the schools’Big East opener and unranked Florida State at unranked Miami in an Atlantic Coast Conference matchup with not much magnitude.

4. One of the more intriguing games of the week will be Oregon State at Utah on Thursday night. The Beavers are coming off an upset win over then-No. 1 USC and carry the burden of the Pacific 10 Conference’s 1-5 record this season against the Mountain West Conference into Salt Lake City.

5. The team you don’t want to be this week is Arkansas, which has given up 101 points the last two weeks in blowout losses to Alabama and Texas and now plays host to Florida, coming off a humiliating home loss on Saturday to Mississippi.

-- Chris Dufresne