When the first Bowl Championship Series standings are released Monday, it will be much more interesting to look at the bottom than the top.

Oklahoma will be No. 1 and the winner of the Miami-Virginia Tech game on Nov. 1 will also have a clear shot into the Sugar Bowl for the national title.

The big question is where the other two undefeated teams will be and whether they can play in a major bowl.

Northern Illinois is expected to be No. 10 in the first BCS standings, while TCU will be lucky to make the top 15, according to BCS expert Jerry Palm.

“In December, if we’re able to win all our ballgames then we’ll have something to talk about,” TCU coach Gary Patterson said Sunday. “If we’re able to pull it off, then we’ll have an argument.”

The BCS was set up by college football’s six biggest conferences before the 1998 season to determine a national champion without a playoff system, instead using polls, computer rankings, schedule strength, losses and bonus points to determine the teams that play for the title.

Oklahoma, Miami and Virginia Tech figure to be the top three teams, according to Palm, and are the leading contenders right now for the Sugar Bowl.

While the system never was supposed to do anything other than determine the top two teams to play in a national championship game heading into the bowls, there has been a lot of focus this year on how teams are picked for the other three bowls.

Teams from outside the Pac-10, Big 12, SEC, ACC, Big East and Big Ten have been on a public relations push to improve access to bowls that pay out about $13 million a team.

Right now, a team has to be in the top six to guarantee a bid and top 12 to be eligible. Because of the schedules they play, Northern Illinois and TCU have no shot for the automatic bid and must hope they can stay eligible.

If one of them is undefeated and in the top 12, you can probably count on the Fiesta or Orange bowl to invite them to quiet the criticism.

“I’ve never been to a bad bowl game,” Patterson said. “Obviously, for our kids it probably affects them more than anyone else because kids have dreams. We can’t worry about things we have no control of.”

That will be a tough test for Patterson and Northern Illinois coach Joe Novak. Previous teams in this situation haven’t been so successful at doing that.

In 2001, BYU started 12-0 and had hopes of playing in a major bowl but lost 72-45 to Hawaii in the season finale. The previous year, TCU started 7-0 and reached the top 10 before a 27-24 loss to San Jose State.

In 1998, Tulane went undefeated but could only play in the Liberty Bowl because it was ranked 11th in the BCS standings. As the members of the BCS meet to discuss changes to the system for the next contract, which will begin with the 2006 season, they

are considering guaranteeing any undefeated top 12 team a bid.

Despite high-profile wins against Maryland, Alabama and Iowa State, the Huskies are hurt by the MAC. While the conference has two ranked teams for the first time in 30 years and has high-profile wins against Pittsburgh and Kansas State, the 14 schools have combined for a 9-26 record in nonconference games against Division I-A teams.

Northern Illinois has two tough road trips left, playing at No. 23 Bowling Green on Saturday and at Toledo on Nov. 15. If the Huskies win those games, they’ll also have the MAC title game to contend with.

Conference USA doesn’t help TCU much either, so the Horned Frogs will probably need lots of help from the pollsters to move up in the BCS standings. They also have to get past home games with Louisville and Cincinnati and a trip to Southern Mississippi.

Northern Illinois has looked much more impressive than TCU so far, especially after the Horned Frogs beat UAB by only three points.

History says both teams won’t remain undefeated. But if they do, the Huskies should get the BCS bid.

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Josh Dubow covers college football for The Associated Press. Write to him at jdubow(at)ap.org

AP-ES-10-19-03 1820EDT