In 5 of the last 9 years, the team that opened up the initial BCS poll at the #1 position finished at the top spot after the conference championship games. Only two of the nine teams finished outside the top 5, and none finished outside the top 10. In the table below, the losses column indicates the number of losses from the time the first BCS poll was released through the week of the conference championship games.

Year Team Final Rank Losses After 1st BCS Poll 2001 Oklahoma #10 2 2002 Oklahoma #7 2 2003 Oklahoma #1 1 2004 USC #1 0 2005 USC #1 0 2006 Ohio State #1 0 2007 Ohio State #1 1 2008 Texas #3 1 2009 Florida #5 1

The moral of the story is that teams that open up in the #1 spot are very hard to unseat unless they lose. In 2007, enough crazy shenanigans happened that allowed Ohio State to jump back to the #1 ranking despite a loss after the first BCS poll was released.