Rose Bowl
No. 5 USC vs. No. 8 Penn State
For the fourth straight year, the Pacific-10 Conference’s most dominant football team will take part in its most prestigious bowl game.
With the USC Trojans’ 28-7 win over the UCLA Bruins Saturday, they locked up their seventh-consecutive Bowl Championship Series bid, seventh-consecutive 11-win season and seventh-consecutive conference title.
Since losing to Oregon State in Corvallis, USC has rattled off nine straight wins by outscoring its opponents 342-46. The Trojan defense gave up a total of 93 points in all 12 of their games combined. That’s good for a 7.8 points per game average, the lowest in college football since 1988 (Auburn; 7.2 ppg).
But dominating the conference might be what kept USC out of the national championship this season as that dominance has lowered the national perception of the Pac-10. This season, one-loss Florida and one-loss Oklahoma will meet for the national title, while one-loss USC will play in the Rose Bowl against Penn State.
Penn State fans will get their wish of not having to face the Beavers in the Rose Bowl after blowing them out earlier this season, and will get a chance to test their mettle against one of the true powerhouses of modern college football.
The vaunted and statistically gaudy Trojan defense will be tested by the Nittany Lions, who surged to national prominence this season behind a new-look spread offense engineered by offensive coordinator Galen Hall and quarterbacks coach Jay Paterno. The offense led the Big Ten in scoring while ranking second in rushing and third in passing.
The 2009 Rose Bowl (presented by Citi) will kickoff at 1:30 p.m. Jan. 1 in Pasadena, Calif., and will be televised nationally on ABC.
Sun Bowl
No. 24 Oregon State vs. No. 18 Pittsburgh
The No. 24 Oregon State Beavers (8-4) will play the No. 18 Pittsburgh Panthers (9-3) in the 75th Annual Brut Sun Bowl game on Dec. 31 in El Paso, Texas.
The Panthers are coming off a 34-10 win over Connecticut Saturday, and they finished in a three-way tie for second in the Big East Conference with West Virginia and Rutgers. Pitt’s 9-3 record is the first nine-win season for the school since the 1982 season when Dan Marino was the quarterback.
It’s a long ways away and a day earlier than the Beavers had originally hoped they would have played, but after a season-ending 65-38 blowout loss to No. 15 Oregon on Nov. 30, the team’s shot at a Rose Bowl appearance (and a conference championship) was gone.
This is the Panthers’ first bowl game since the 2004 season when they lost in the Fiesta Bowl 35-7 to Utah. It’s also Pitt’s third Sun Bowl appearance, and the first since 1989 when they beat Texas A&M 31-28.
For Oregon State it’s the second time in three years it’s played in El Paso. In 2006 the Beavers beat Missouri on a gutsy two-point conversion play in the waning seconds.
The Beavers have been to eight bowls in the past 10 years, and head coach Mike Riley is 4-0 in bowl games while at OSU.
Emerald Bowl
Cal vs. Miami
California won’t have to travel far to take on the Miami Hurricanes on Dec. 27 at San Francisco’s AT&T Park. The Golden Bears (8-4) feature one of the nation’s finest running backs in Jahvid Best, whose 311 yards on 19 carries helped him break Cal’s single-game rushing record. On the year, Best has 1,394 yards, while the Miami (7-5) defense is averaging nearly 150 yards allowed on the ground per game.
Turnovers will be crucial for the game, as Cal is the seventh-best team in the nation in turnover margin, while the Hurricanes are a dismal 101st.
While neither offense is explosive, the game could be close. Cal has averaged 33 points per game and Miami 27 points.
The two teams have each allowed an identical 2.08 sacks per game this season.
The Golden Bears’ campus at Berkeley is barely nine miles away from the stadium, while Miami will be traveling across the country to play in its first bowl game since 2006. The program is only six years removed from winning a national title against Nebraska and losing to Ohio State in the 2003 title game. Head coach Randy Shannon has been a part of three of the school’s five national titles as either a player or a coach.
This is the first time in the Emerald Bowl’s seven-year history that Cal will play in the game, and it is the sixth bowl game in Cal head coach Jeff Tedford’s seven years.
Las Vegas Bowl
Arizona vs. No. 17 Brigham Young
Las Vegas is becoming the de facto postseason destination for the Brigham Young Cougars, who are making their fourth straight trip to the bowl, where they have won two straight. To beat Arizona, they’ll have to ride the arm of Max Hall like they did all season, as the Cougars (10-2) scored 35 points per game and threw for nearly 309 yards, which was the seventh-best average in the nation.
Hall is one of the best passers across all categories in college football, as the nation’s 12th-most efficient passer and its seventh-most prolific, passing for 3,629 yards in 12 games – and he’s only a junior.
The Cougars hoped to be the non-BCS conference school to play in a January bowl game this season, but losses to No. 7 Utah and No. 11 Texas Christian University put the team in Las Vegas once again. Beaten twice, the Cougars will not be underrated by the Wildcats.
Arizona features its own star quarterback in Willie Tuitama, who has thrown for 21 touchdowns and 2,763 yards this season in leading the Wildcats (7-5) to a Territorial Cup win over rival Arizona State on Saturday that confirmed the team’s first bowl bid since 1998.
The teams have three common opponents this season in Washington, UCLA and New Mexico, of whom BYU beat all three. Arizona beat its two Pac-10 opponents but lost to New Mexico on Sept. 13.
Special teams will also play a factor in the game, as Arizona is second in the nation averaging 18.45 yards per punt return and BYU is sixth in kickoff returns with 25 yards per return.
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