TCU rolls, but takes a BCS hit

There's a scene in "Die Hard: With a Vengeance" during which Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson's characters have to defuse a bomb by placing exactly four gallons of water on a scale, using only a five-gallon jug and a three-gallon jug.

No matter how many times you've seen the movie (cable viewers, potentially dozens), it can still be hard to go back and remember exactly how to do it -- although, fortunately, Willis and Jackson eventually figure it out. (Ready for it? Fill the five all the way to the top, and then pour it into the three. Dump out the water in the three, and then pour the remaining two from the five into the three. Then, fill the five all the way to the top, and pour out one gallon into the remaining one-gallon space in the three, leaving the five-gallon jug with exactly four gallons of water. Simple stuff, really).

We mention this for a reason, because projecting the BCS title game at this stage of the college football season can be about as complicated as trying to figure out Willis and Jackson's four-gallon jug riddle. And that's why the Eliminator tries to simplify things a bit, focusing on the statistical profiles of each team as compared to past BCS and conference champs. It's a means of seeing which teams most closely resemble bona fide contenders. For more on our formula you can check out our past editions here, here and here.

This week, one team dropped off the national title pace -- it'll be a big surprise, too -- leaving us with only two elite BCS title contenders that meet all six of the benchmarks set by past champs. We found out lots more, too, including the fact there's a surprise SEC title contender coming up out of nowhere (and no, we're not talking about the LSU Tigers).

For the full breakdown, you need to be an ESPN Insider.

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