Does Louisville's loss to UCF improve Rutgers' hopes of a BCS berth?

Well, UCF did what Rutgers could not: It went to unbeaten Louisville, on a weeknight, on national TV, and left with a dramatic victory.

The Cardinals were up 28-7 in the third quarter when the Knights rallied in stunning fashion to take the lead. Even then, the visiting team still needed a late touchdown drive to pull out the 38-35 victory -- which allows Rutgers fans to ask a familiar question today:

Does it help the Scarlet Knights' hopes of landing in a major bowl?

Simple answer: Yes, but they'd likely need even more help. And that doesn't look very promising.

UCF is now in control of the American Athletic Conference title race and the automatic BCS bid that goes with it. Assume -- and this is a big assumption given the offense's struggles last Thursday night -- that the Scarlet Knights win their final six games. That would include a road win at UCF on Nov. 21.

So if Rutgers, UCF and Louisville all finish tied for the conference lead at 7-1 in league games, the tie breaking procedures go like this:

1. If one team defeated both other teams, then that team would be the representative. That wouldn't apply here, since all three would have a 1-1 against the other two. 

2. If still tied, and if two teams defeated the third team, the third team is eliminated. The remaining two teams revert to the two-team tie procedure. Again, this doesn't apply based on the head-to-head records.

3. If still tied, the highest-ranked team in the final BCS standings will be the BCS representative. This would be the tiebreaker in this scenario.

Rutgers would somehow have to leapfrog Louisville in the BCS rankings to get the berth in a three-way tie. The first standings won't be released until Sunday, but in one projection, Louisville was ninth and Rutgers 45th before last night's game. In other words, that isn't going to happen.

So what Rutgers really needs is another Louisville loss. This is the Cardinals remaining schedule:

Oct. 26 at South Florida (2-4)

Nov. 8 at Connecticut (0-5)

Nov. 16 vs. Houston (5-0)

Nov. 23 vs Memphis (1-4)

Dec. 5 at Cincinnati (4-2)

Anything is possible. But does anyone want to bet on that?