Oregon St. Wins And Slips Back

UPDATED

Despite blowing California out of Reser Stadium with a 62-14 win that approached record-book proportions, and actually achieved it in a negative way for the Bears, Oregon St. actually fell in this week's AP ranking, dropping from #15 to #16.

The reasons are two-fold; the only teams ahead of the Beavers who lost, Oregon and Kansas St., happened to be the top 2 teams in the country entering the weekend, and therefore didn't drop far enough to matter to those outside the top 10, and UCLA, whom people actually saw beat USC to earn the Pac-12 South Championship, impressed more people than those who didn't see Oregon St. hand California their worst loss in history, thanks to the continuing failure to get decent distribution of the Pac-12 closed circuit channel.

In the "what video highlight have you shown me lately" era, those rightly impressed by the Bruins' 38-28 win over the Trojans, which dropped USC out of the top 25, also forgot about the Beavers having beaten UCLA 27-10 on that same Rose Bowl floor back in September.

As a result, the Bruins climbed from #17 close behind the Beavers, to #15, immediately ahead of them.

As a result, its Thanksgiving Week, and Notre Dame (!) is only remaining undefeated bowl eligible team, and the unanimous #1 in the nation.

Stanford, who suffered both officiating and review failure in their visit to South Bend, both of which contributed to Notre Dame escaping with a 20-13 overtime win, prevailed in overtime this time, downing Oregon 17-14 at Autzen, and climbed from #14 to #11 in the AP poll, dropping Oregon from #1 to #5 in the process.

The Coaches Sports Information Directors also deposited the Cardinal at #11, but only dropped the Ducks to #4, and made no change to either UCLA or Oregon St., leaving them at the same#16 and #17 spots, respectively, that they had slotted them in last week.

What it means where it really matters, in the BCS rankings, we will learn this evening. But its now assured that the SEC will manage to have at least one team in the National Championship game again.

BCS Update:

Oregon dropped from #2 to #5 in the BCS, while Stanford jumped up to #8 from #13. Oregon St. edged up from #16 to #15, while UCLA stayed at #17. USC dropped completely out, and Washington remained at #25, after their 38-3 blowout of Colorado. Arizona vaulted into the BCS rankings, jumping over the Huskies to #24 after

Andy_Wooldridge@yahoo.com