Oregon jumped up to #5 in the new BCS standings after Stanford's loss to USC sent them down to #9. Here is the top 10 and the other ranked Pac-12 teams.

1. Alabama .9914

2. Florida State .9661

3. Ohio State .8869

4. Baylor .8856

5. Oregon .8717

6. Auburn .8680

7. Clemson .7681

8. Missouri .7231

9. Stanford .6238

10. Oklahoma State .5890

14. UCLA .4615

17. Arizona State .3414

23. USC .1070

Two things to note above: The gap between Ohio State and Baylor is .0013. Reasonable to think that the Bears would jump the Buckeyes if both win out. Secondly, Auburn is closing in on Oregon to the point that if they were to beat Alabama, they'd likely jump the Ducks.

Continuing in that vein, here's what I consider Oregon's best (read: only) chance to have an argument for the BCS title game. That's not to say that crazier things *can't* happen, nor that this isn't nuts in its own right.

1. Baylor loses to Oklahoma State. This would pretty much remove the Bears from the discussion due to their strength of schedule issues.

2. Auburn beats Alabama. As noted above, this would probably jump Auburn over the Ducks in the polls if in a vacuum, but we'll come back to this in a minute.

3. Michigan State beats Ohio State (Big 10 Championship Game). This would take Ohio State out for the same reason as Baylor – lackluster strength of schedule.

What this would create in essence is a three-way discussion between Oregon, Alabama, and Auburn. What the Ducks would need is some SEC infighting, if you will, over the Iron Bowl rivals.

Similar to two regional candidates canceling each other out in Heisman voting or a third party political candidate in an election, Oregon's hope would be that the two would split their pool of votes in a way that somehow gets the Ducks to #2.

Is it likely? No. It's the team's best shot, though.

