NCAA Football

Oregon Win Opens Up a BCS At-Large Slot for Somebody, but Who?

Posted Nov 29, 2008 11:13PM By Mark Hasty (RSS feed)

Filed Under: Boise State, Ohio State, Oregon, Oregon State, Penn State, USC, BCS, Bowl Games

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With their 65-38 win over the Oregon State Beavers tonight, the Oregon Ducks became heroes to a lot of people in some far-flung places. Boise, Idaho is one of those places, as well as Columbus, Ohio, and a lot of other locales in Big Ten country.

The Ducks left little doubt about who was the better team tonight, rolling up almost 700 yards of offense. Two guys named Jeremiah were at the center of it all. Running back Jeremiah Johnson ran for over 200 yards, while quarterback Jeremiah Masoli passed for 277 more, including three touchdowns. Not even 13 penalties against them could slow down the Ducks.

The loss ends Oregon State's hopes of making it to the Rose Bowl. That's unfortunate. Beaver quarterback Lyle Moevao was as brilliant tonight as he has been all season long, passing for five touchdowns against two interceptions. Throw in two lost fumbles and a Duck offense playing completely over the moon and it's not hard to figure out how Oregon wound up winning so convincingly.

Now Southern Cal will head to the Rose Bowl to face Penn State in a matchup that absolutely no one outside of LA or State College will be looking forward to. Oh, and there's a BCS at-large slot open now.

So who gets it? The top two candidates, as I've already hinted, would be Boise State (12-0 and ninth in the last BCS standings) and Ohio State (10-2 and right behind the Broncos in the BCS). There really isn't anybody else.

Save your typing. You don't want to see Ohio State in the BCS again, I know. It would be a good thing for all of college football if the BCS did the right thing and put two mid-major teams in their bowls, since both are undefeated, both are in the BCS top ten, and Ball State is pretty far behind. The BCS is only required to take one qualifying mid-major team, however.

What you and I think is the right thing to do, though, may not be what the BCS wizards decide upon. While the Broncos sold plenty of tickets to the Fiesta Bowl two seasons ago, Ohio State is a huge national draw and would be good for ratings. It's the Fiesta Bowl's decision to make, apparently, and they may be open to a Utah-Boise State game. Now let's see if they can actually pull the trigger.

Tags: jeremiah+johnson, jeremiah+masoli, JeremiahJohnson, JeremiahMasoli, lyle+moevao, LyleMoevao

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