To keep moving up the BCS ladder, and possibly all the way to the BCS Championship Game, Arkansas would

need to win the rest of its games and also most likely would need most of these games to fall like this. BCS teams with records and key games remaining 1. Ohio State (10-0 ) at Northwestern, Michigan 2. Michigan (10-0 ) at Indiana, at Ohio State 3. Louisville (8-1 ) South Florida, at Pitt 4. Florida (8-1 ) South Carolina, at Florida State, SEC title game 5. Texas (9-1 ) at Kansas State, Texas A&M, Nebraska 6. Auburn (9-1 ) Georgia, at Alabama 7. Southern Cal (7-1 ) Oregon, Cal, Notre Dame, at UCLA 8. California (8-1 ) at Arizona, at Southern Cal 9. Notre Dame (8-1 ) at Air Force, at Southern Cal 10. West Virginia (7-1 ) Cincinnati, at Pitt, South Florida, Rutgers 11. Arkansas (8-1 ) Tennessee, at Miss. State, LSU 12. LSU (7-2 ) Alabama, Ole Miss, at Arkansas 13. Rutgers (9-0 ) at Cincinnati, Syracuse, at West Virginia NOTE Either Arkansas, Auburn or LSU will meet Florida in the SEC Championship Game on Dec. 2.

FAYETTEVILLE — The distance separating Arkansas and the BCS Championship Game sounds harmless enough.

Nine spots. Arkansas stands 11 th and the top two teams at the end of the regular season meet Jan. 8 in the Fiesta Bowl.

But in BCS measurements, a nine-place span qualifies as the Grand Canyon.

The reality is the Razorbacks face longs odds to climb into the 1-2 game, according to experts who follow the Bowl Championship Series and several who participate in the ranking system. Opinions vary on how long the odds might be.

One sentiment: Arkansas gets there when pigs fly.

“It’s like too impossible,” said Jeff Sagarin, whose computer ratings are part of the BCS formula.

Others don’t see as many obstacles.

“I certainly don’t think the Razorbacks are out of the mix, and I wouldn’t think they need anything preposterous to happen,” said Jeff Anderson, who represents half of the Anderson & Hester computer ratings used by the BCS.

Winning out is a must, though, Anderson said.

As the Hogs (8-1, 5-0 SEC ) prepare to play Tennessee (7-2, 3-2 ) on Saturday, they’ve wiggled into the national title scene, even if it is as a fuzzy figure in the background.

Everybody agrees that even if Arkansas wins the rest of its games, that won’t lift its BCS ranking high enough. The Hogs would need help from the teams ahead of them, the voters and the computers.

The BCS standings are comprised of two-thirds human element and one-third software. An average is taken from the USA Today coaches poll, the Harris Interactive poll and a compilation of six computer ratings.

Arkansas’ BCS standing isn’t higher because it’s had so much ground to make up after starting the season unranked and getting spanked 50-14 by Southern California, the experts said.

The recent schedule has been a hindrance, too. After running over Auburn 27-10 on Oct. 7, Arkansas played three consecutive teams whose combined record is 8-19, including Division I-AA Southeast Missouri State. Opponent strength picked up last week when the Hogs won 26-20 at South Carolina.

Now the schedule is fortified with Tennessee (16 th BCS ) and LSU (12 th ) sandwiching a trip to Mississippi State. Arkansas needs two wins to clinch the Western Division and earn a shot at Florida (fourth ) in the SEC title game. Still, it would take the perfect storm for Arkansas to land in the BCS title game, Sagarin said. Ohio State and Michigan are first and second right now and they play next week. The winner will claim one title game spot, provided the Buckeyes don’t trip this weekend against Big Ten doormat Northwestern and the Wolverines dispatch Indiana. That leaves a pack of teams grasping for the other spot.

NEEDING ASSISTANCE Just about every team in front of it would need to lose for Arkansas rise to No. 2, Sagarin said. “You’ve got a whole bunch of dice roles,” Sagarin said. “If you assume every game that you want to happen your way happens, you might have 10 games like that. That’s flipping a coin 10 times. Assuming there’s a 50 percent chance for each game to go your way, which is not even accurate in itself, it would be one out of a thousand for all those games to drop your way.”

Jim Walden, a former college coach and one of the Harris poll’s 114 voters, said: “There’s no way Arkansas is ever going to get to the 1-2. There’s too much up there in front of you.”

Maybe not, Anderson said. The way he sees it, if the Razorbacks win out, the computers will reward them handsomely and they would leapfrog West Virginia, Notre Dame, California, Auburn and Texas, all one-loss teams currently ahead of them.

The only help Arkansas would need would be for undefeated Rutgers and one-loss USC to lose. Florida already would have fallen in the SEC title game.

That’s why Anderson said he doesn’t believe Arkansas reaching the BCS title game is preposterous.

“The only thing preposterous that would need to happen would be for them to win those five games, and I’m not saying they can’t do it,” Anderson said. “But beating Tennessee, beating LSU, beating Florida — that’s pretty rough.”

Anderson cautioned that the scenario he laid out could — but would not guarantee — Arkansas would reach the title game.

ESPN analyst Ed Cunningham, who played on Washington’s 1991 national championship team and will work the Arkansas-Tennessee game, said the computers “would love” the Razorbacks if they win out and that they probably will get help elsewhere.

Cunningham and several others said they believe USC will lose at least once more because its closing stretch consists of Oregon, Cal, Notre Dame and UCLA.

An undefeated Rutgers could grab the second spot in the title game, the experts said. The next chance for Rutgers to stumble is Dec. 2 at West Virginia.

POLL VAULT NO LOCK Richard Billingsley, creator of another BCS computer rating, said Arkansas is a long shot but should keep up hope because the final weeks are unpredictable. In 2001, five of the top 10 BCS teams lost in the final three weeks. Billingsley also forecasts an Arkansas leap if it goes 12-1. How high is difficult to tell. “The computers will respect Arkansas if they win out on that schedule,” Billingsley said. “The humans are not necessarily going to respect that.”

Voters might be less likely to boost a 12-1 Arkansas as high as the computers because many won’t move a team up unless others in front of it lose, the experts said.

“Ultimately, that’s the biggest flaw of the human element,” said Cunningham, the ESPN analyst, who does not have a vote.

One example where the polls and computers could differ is Arkansas’ standing in relation to Texas, a one-loss team currently ranked fifth.

Anderson said the computers would move Arkansas ahead because of schedule strength. But Walden said Texas would still deserve to be rated higher than every other one-loss team if it wins out because the Longhorns’ only loss was to No. 1 Ohio State.

“You’re never going to get me to vote for one team ahead of a team that’s only lost to the best team in the country,” Walden said.

Walden said it is perplexing that Arkansas ranks 11 th in both polls despite winning by 17 points at Auburn, which is ranked sixth. He wouldn’t reveal his latest ballot because the Harris organizers have asked participants not to, but Walden said he has voted Arkansas ahead of Auburn since the victory.

Auburn stood third in the coaches and Harris polls before it lost and dropped to 10 th in both the next week. Arkansas debuted at 22 nd in the Harris poll and 23 rd in the coaches poll after beating Auburn.

Many voters can’t bring themselves to make radical adjustments to their ballots, so teams that aren’t ranked before the season have a tougher route to the top, the experts said.

Peter Wolfe, who operates one of the BCS polls, said historical biases also play into voters ’ minds. Auburn has been strong in recent years and Arkansas has not.

“It doesn’t matter to the computer what happened in previous years, but to people it matters a lot,” Wolfe said.

Billingsley’s advice ?

“All Arkansas can do is take care of business,” he said. “Mathematically, is an opportunity there ? Absolutely, there is.”