The BCS picture is becoming pretty clear to me...
Notre Dame will not pass Oregon in the BCS if both are undefeated. Oregon is #1 in the Coaches Poll with their 3 toughest games of the season coming up. If they win those 3 of course they will remain #1 in the polls. And because of the strength of schedule in these final three games for them, their computer ranking will go up and they will pass Kansas State as the top team in the BCS rankings.
An undefeated ND will not pass an undefeated Oregon in the BCS standings unfortunately.
Notre Dame's hope and only chance is to pass an undefeated Kansas State team.
To pass Kansas State, I believe the following things need to happen:
1. USC has to beat UCLA this week. We need USC to be a solid Top 15 team when we play them in 2 weeks. If we can beat a Top 15 USC team then the computers will still love us.
2. Oregon has to pass Kansas State in a lot of the computer polls. Given Oregon's tough schedule coming up, this is entirely possible.
3. Oregon's tough upcoming schedule may help them pass Kansas State in the computers, but let's not forget Kansas State would get a huge boost in the computers if they beat a highly regarded Texas team. That's why it would be really nice if TCU could beat Texas in 2 weeks to make that Texas vs. Kansas State game less impressive.
4. Other small things that can help us is:
a. if Oklahoma can win out
b. if Miami could win the ACC
c. if Wake Forest can beat Vanderbilt in 2 weeks and Pudue can beat both Illinois and Indiana and Mich State can win one more game. Why, you may ask? Because that would mean 11 of our 12 opponents are bowl eligible. Pretty darn impressive if you ask me.
d. if Michigan can beat Ohio State then they are guaranteed to be ranked which would mean we would have beaten 4 teams in the end of regular season Top 25 poll