By AP/KWMU
New York, NY – Missouri football learned Sunday what fans started thinking immediately after their win Saturday against Kansas, that they're the best team in the nation.
The Tigers and West Virginia Mountaineers hold the top two spots in the Bowl Championship Series standings released Sunday with a week left in a topsy-turvy regular season.
The Tigers play Oklahoma (10-2) in the Big 12 championship game at San Antonio on Saturday and the Mountaineers face rival Pittsburgh (4-7) at home. If both win, it'll be Missouri-West Virginia in a most unlikely BCS championship game on Jan. 7 at the Superdome.
If either Missouri (11-1) or West Virginia (10-1) trip up next week, third-place Ohio State (11-1) is poised to take advantage and play in its second straight title game.
If the Tigers and Mountaineers both lose, the national title picture gets very murky.
Georgia was in fourth place in the standings and Kansas (11-1) was fifth. Neither will play in their conference title games, but both still have a shot to play for a national championship.
The Bulldogs (10-2) could become the first team with two-losses to play for a national title and several other two-loss teams could make a claim to be in the championship game if the top two lose for a second consecutive week.
Sixth-place Virginia Tech (10-2), seventh-place LSU (10-2), eighth-place Southern California (9-2) and ninth-place Oklahoma all have one last opportunity to surge up the BCS standings on Saturday.
The Buckeyes season ended Nov. 17 with a victory over Michigan that made them the Big Ten champions. The week before, Ohio State was No. 1 in the country when it lost to Illinois at home and seemingly fell out of the title race.
AP RANKING
Missouri is also No. 1 in The Associated Press Top 25, something the Tigers have only done once before in school history.
Missouri became the fourth team this season -- joining Southern California, LSU and Ohio State -- to hold the top ranking, a day after beating Kansas 36-28 to earn a spot in the Big 12 championship game. Not since 1997 have so many teams been No. 1 in a season.
The Tigers' only other time at No. 1 lasted a week in 1960.