Alabama, Florida State solid at 1-2 in BCS

Daniel Uthman | USA TODAY Sports

One week after forecasts of BCS chaos, there appears to be a clear pair of teams headed to the national championship game.

Alabama and Florida State are Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, in the latest BCS standings released Sunday, with the Crimson Tide earning a .9958 average and Florida State a .9619. They are the only teams with an average above .90. The other two unbeaten teams from automatic qualifying conferences, Ohio State and Baylor, are ranked third and fifth, respectively.

Oregon, never lower than third in previous standings this season, fell to sixth with a BCS average of .7685. The only one-loss team above the Ducks is the one that defeated them Thursday — Stanford — which is fourth in this week's standings partly on the strength of its schedule, which is 2nd in the nation according to Jeff Sagarin's ratings.

Though Florida State strengthened its hold on the No. 2 spot after another dominating performance Saturday, its strength of schedule slipped slightly in the wake of Miami's loss to Virginia Tech. But even with concerns about their schedule strength, the Seminoles should be able to hold off Ohio State and Baylor if those teams continue to win. Both teams' SOS slid slightly this weekend, with the Buckeyes sitting at 81st nationally and Baylor at 96th.

Baylor avoided an SOS disaster when Texas escaped at West Virginia, and it still has to play 8-1 Oklahoma State, but Texas Tech's slide is preventing the Bears' SOS from improving.

Should the three AQ unbeatens behind Alabama lose, a one-loss Stanford team would be a likely challenger to the Crimson Tide.

Fresno State remained the top-rated non-AQ unbeaten, and its 14th-place ranking would land it in a BCS bowl were the season to end today, by virtue of the fact it meets the criteria of being in the BCS top 16 and ranked ahead of the highest-ranked team from an AQ league. The Bulldogs are two spots head of the American Athletic Conference leader, Central Florida. Northern Illinois, an Orange Bowl participant last season, sits between them in 15th place. Northern Illinois lags behind Fresno State mainly because it trails the Bulldogs by 5 and 7 spots, respectively, in the two human polls that are factored into the BCS standings.