This was finally the week to learn something relevant about the handful of surprising teams atop the Bowl Championship Series standings, as all faced their most significant tests of the season.

With the results now in, it can be said that all passed with flying colors. Well, perhaps Boston College scraped by on the curve in its miraculous, 14–10 win at Virginia Tech Thursday night, but chances are the voters were captivated enough by quarterback Matt Ryan’s Heisman-worthy finish to forget that he and the Eagles looked awful for the game’s first 56 minutes.

Boston College solidified its hold on the critical second spot in the BCS standings yesterday, widening its edge on idle LSU. At the top of the list, Ohio State remains no. 1 with a resume that is significantly improved after the Buckeyes carved up Penn State in a 37–17 rout of the Nittany Lions.

Ohio State is no stranger to the top of the polls, having gone wire-to-wire at no. 1 last year before getting trounced by Florida in the national-title game. But this was supposed to be a rebuilding year for the Ohio State offense. Instead, quarterback Todd Boeckman is starting to look like a more-than-adequate replacement for Heisman-winner Troy Smith. He leads a balanced Ohio State attack that has won its five conference games by an average score of 38–11 and didn’t punt once against Penn State’s top-ten defense. It now looks as if the traditional season-ending game against Michigan will decide the Big Ten championship and determine whether the Buckeyes play for the national championship for the third time in six seasons.

The other BCS interlopers, undefeated Arizona State and Kansas, also solidified their standing. The no. 4 Sun Devils in particular were a mystery due to their backloaded schedule. They started 7–0 without playing a ranked opponent, but closed the year with games against Cal, Oregon, UCLA, USC, and Arizona. When the Sun Devils quickly fell behind Cal Saturday night, it looked as though the skepticism about their lofty ranking might have been justified. Yet they rallied for a 31–20 win to set up a game with enormous implications next week at Oregon.

The Ducks, second behind LSU among the once-beaten teams in the BCS (and no. 5 overall), made a statement of their own Saturday, producing a workmanlike win over USC.

Eighth-ranked Kansas has more work to do before it can begin thinking about national championships, but it’s doubtful the Jayhawks and their supporters are complaining after getting to 8–0 for the first time in 98 years. Mark Mangino’s defense completely shut down Texas A&M, but Kansas still faces Nebraska, Oklahoma State, and Iowa State before a regular season-ending battle against Missouri that could decide the Big 12 North title. It certainly hasn’t hurt that Oklahoma and Texas aren’t on the schedule this year,but Kansas could well face the Sooners in the league championship game with a BCS bid on the line.

One conference that has to be suddenly worried about its BCS standing is the SEC. The conference that has been perceived to be the nation’s best for much of the last decade has no undefeated teams as it is down to just one with a single loss: LSU. The Tigers’ toughest remaining test is this week at Alabama; a loss to former coach Nick Saban and the Tide will eliminate the SEC from the national-title picture.

The problem is the conference’s East Division, where the teams have been beating each other up all season. SEC defenders typically point to this as evidence of the conference’s overall strength and depth, but that is a more difficult argument to make this season when non-conference results are taken into effect.

Consider that Tennessee, which currently controls its own destiny to win the East, has lost three games by a combined 84 points. One of those blowout losses came at Cal, which has now lost three straight games to fall completely out of the rankings. Florida lost at home to Auburn, which lost at home to South Florida, which has lost two straight in the Big East to Rutgers and Connecticut. LSU’s lone loss came to Kentucky, which was just beaten badly at home by a Mississippi State team that was routed last week by West Virginia of the Big East.

The SEC has the best overall out-of-conference record at 30–5, but when the results are narrowed to only games against other BCS conferences, the picture is far different. In those contests, SEC teams are 5–5. By comparison, the Pac-10 is 5–3 — best among the six leagues with automatic BCS bids. The lowly Big Ten, suffering through a down year overall, is the only other conference with a winning record against the other BCS leagues (5–4).

Should LSU edge Oregon for a berth in the national-title game — despite mounting evidence that the Pac-10 is at least the equal of the SEC — a lack of exposure could be to blame. While other conferences’ biggest games are on ABC, ESPN, and CBS each week, Pac-10 games that don’t make ABC are relegated to Fox Sports Net. While nearly every cable household in America has access to FSN, it’s not the first place channel-surfers look to find a college football game. Saturday’s two biggest Pac-10 games, USC at Oregon and Cal at Arizona State, aired on MSG and FSNY, respectively, in the nation’s largest market. At the same time, Florida–Georgia was on CBS, South Carolina–Tennessee was on ESPN, and ABC had Ohio State–Penn State.

With a human element — in the form of the polls that make up two-thirds of the BCS formula — playing a huge role, the SEC’s reputation and national exposure could keep Oregon on the outside looking in.

Mr. Levine is a writer for FootballOutsiders.com.