The Oregon State Beavers come off one of the biggest wins in school history to host the Arizona State Sun Devils this Saturday, 1:05 p.m.
One thing they can’t do, said coach Mike Riley, is take any time to enjoy that victory.
“You can’t get beaten by your last game,” said the coach. “Whether you dwell on a loss for too long or you dwell on a win too long, you can’t get beaten by that game.”
A win would give Oregon State (5-3, 3-2 Pac-10) its first conference winning streak of more than three games since they won six straight in 2000.
Arizona State (5-3, 2-3 Pac-10) plays a road game for the fifth time in seven games, a brutal stretch that included losses at USC and at Cal.
The Sun Devils defeated Washington in overtime last week, 26-23.
Oregon State has beaten Arizona State only twice since 1971, and the Sun Devils have won nine of the last ten meetings between the teams.
After last weekend’s much-talked-about upset at the hands of Oregon State, USC will be looking to make a statement this Saturday when they travel to Stanford to take on the winless Cardinal.
The loss dropped USC (6-1, 4-1 Pac-10) from No. 2 to No. 9 nationally, and may have ended their national championship hopes for this season.
“We need to get this football team back on track and play good football, and get a game under our belt and see if we can get a win up there,” said coach Pete Carroll. “It is very important for us to do that and it is a good challenge for us to deal with the situation that happened up at Oregon State, and the loss and then come back and get rolling again.”
Stanford (0-8, 0-5 Pac-10) hasn’t been able to get anything rolling this year. They lost their last game by an embarrassing 38-3 margin to Arizona State.
One bright spot on the Stanford team has been the play of senior linebacker Michael Okwo who, forced to sit out the first two games of the year due to a fractured thumb, has made his presence known since returning to the starting lineup for the last six games. In those games, Okwo has recorded a team-high 66 tackles, four tackles for loss and one forced fumble. His 11.0 tackles per game is No. 1 in the Pacific-10 Conference and No. 7 in the NCAA.
The game will be televised nationally on Fox Sports Net, 4 p.m., Saturday.
The Washington State Cougars, sitting alone in third place in the Pac-10, seek their third-straight conference win this Saturday when they host the Arizona Wildcats.
The Cougars (6-3, 4-2 Pac-10) broke into the Associated Press Top 25 Poll this week, for the first time since the end of the 2003 season, ranked No. 25. They also appear in the BCS poll at No. 23.
Washington State has won the last four meetings between the teams, but the Wildcats (3-5, 1-4 Pac-10) are 7-4 all time in Pullman and lead the series 9-6 in games played in the state of Washington (2-2 against the Cougars in Spokane). The last time these teams met in Pullman (2003) the Cougars won 30-7. Arizona holds a 20-13 advantage in the all-time series.