While it hardly takes a world-class football team to beat Rutgers, West Virginia is likely to get a bump in the college football rankings this week with its regular-season-ending victory. Arizona and Northern Illinois, both of whom are grouped near WVU in both the BCS rankings and the AP poll, both already lost this week (to Arizona State and Miami of Ohio, respectively). Florida State (No. 20 in the AP poll) faces a very tough matchup against No. 12 Virginia Tech, and No. 18 South Carolina takes on No. 1 Auburn. Both FSU and South Carolina would pick up their fourth losses of the season if they were to lose this week, potentially opening the door for WVU to move up another couple of spots. No. 14 Nevada is also currently losing to Louisiana Tech, but it’s probably unlikely that Nevada would fall enough for the Mountaineers to pass them.
All in all, though, it looks like it might be possible for the Mountaineers to finish the regular season at somewhere around No. 20 in the AP poll after being at No. 23 last week. Let’s hope UConn loses tonight, not only because it would get WVU to a BCS bowl, but also because it would allow the Big East’s BCS representative to be a ranked team.