It may only be the middle of November, but it’s not too early to think about going bowling.
And that doesn’t mean grabbing your eight-pound ball and throwing it down the lane.
That means thinking about the BCS and how college football is heating up in the race for who is the best, who will finish last and who deserves to be smelling roses.
If bowl games were held today, Oregon would be in the Insight Bowl against the No. 3 team of the Big East, which could be Virginia Tech or West Virginia.
“We just want to win out and go to the best bowl game we can,” linebacker David Moretti said.
The Ducks sit in a tie for fourth in the Pacific-10 Conference with UCLA, at 3-2, and under Pac-10 bowl arrangements, the No. 4 team in the conference goes to the Insight Bowl. Oregon wins the tie-breaker over the Bruins because the Ducks beat UCLA earlier this season.
Five teams will represent the Pac-10 in bowls this year. The Pac-10 Champion goes to the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1, unless that team is one of the top two in BCS standings. Then the team would play in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl for the national championship.
The Pac-10’s second team will go to the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl and face off against the No. 3 team of the Big 12. The third place team in the Pac-10 will face No. 5 of the Big Ten in the Wells Fargo Sun Bowl. The Pac-10’s fifth-place team visits the City That Never Sleeps for the Sega Sports Las Vegas Bowl.
As for Oregon, every player would agree that the current standings don’t reflect anything about what will happen in the end.
“Right now we are shooting for the top,” senior wide receive Keenan Howry said. “We are shooting for the Rose Bowl because that is what the Pac-10 champ does and that is what we are trying to be.”
In the bowl race, heading to Pullman is something different for the Ducks. Oregon has become accustomed to playing teams ranked lower than they are, but Washington State is sitting fifth in both national polls and the Cougars sit atop the Pac-10 as the only undefeated team.
“They’re sitting on cloud nine right about now and they feel like they have nothing to lose in these games coming up,” Howry said. “They probably feel like they are going to the Rose Bowl but we have got to let them know they have one more game at least, and that’s us.”
With the Cougars leading the race to the Rose Bowl, it will be battle for both squads. But if the Ducks are victorious and some other upsets occur, then Oregon could have a chance for the Rose Bowl or the Holiday Bowl.
For the Ducks to be in one of the top two bowls in the Pac-10, they must win against the Cougars, then defeat Washington and ride the momentum train all the way through Corvallis. Arizona State needs to lose twice, WSU needs to lose one other game if the Ducks defeat the Cougars, which would then place Oregon second to USC. But if USC loses twice, including to Arizona State, then the Ducks would finish second behind the Sun Devils.
But the players said it comes down to Oregon taking care of its business and winning the rest of its games, and then hoping for other possibilities.
“Honestly, there’s no way to tell right now because there’s a lot of football left to be played,” junior tight end George Wrighster said.