TUSCALOOSA, Alabama — Alabama fell to fourth in the Bowl Championship Series standings Sunday night.
The three unbeaten teams held the top three spots: No. 1 Kansas State, No. 2 Oregon and No. 3 Notre Dame. Once-beaten Georgia is fifth.
For the Crimson Tide to make the BCS National Championship Game for the third time in four years, it will need some help from the teams that play the top three squads. Kansas State must play at Baylor and Texas at home. Oregon has Stanford at home, a road game at Oregon State and the Pac-12 Championship game. Notre Dame hosts Wake Forest and visits Southern California.
In the “human” polls, the Associated Press, Harris and USA Today coaches rankings have the same top three: No. 1 Oregon, No. 2 Kansas State and No. 3 Notre Dame. AP and Harris have Alabama fourth and Georgia is fifth. The coaches poll has Georgia fourth and Alabama fifth.
The Harris and coaches rankings each make up one-third of the BCS formula. The remaining third is a combination of six computer rankings, and Alabama is fifth with them.
Unlike the coaches and Harris polls, the AP releases its ballots publicly, which means we can see who dropped Alabama how far. One voter, Tom Murphy of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, had Alabama third. Five voters had Alabama seventh, including Mark McCarter of al.com.
Two listed the Crimson Tide at No. 8: Ferd Lewis of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and Kirk Bohls of the Austin (Texas) American Statesman. Both had Oregon at No. 1 and Texas A&M at No. 7.
Until this week, the Crimson Tide had received all the first-place votes in The AP poll five of the previous six weeks. The AP rankings do not count toward the BCS rankings, but AP has awarded a national championship since 1936 and still is considered a major poll.
In addition, the Crimson Tide also remained No. 1 for 10 straight weeks. That’s a school record for the longest stretch in school history.
Click here for the complete AP, Harris and coaches rankings. The BCS standings will be inserted later this evening.
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