Oregon's route to the Fiesta Bowl

I know all Ducks fans would love to see Oregon in the Fiesta Bowl this year, due to some circumstances and politics I don't like the chances of that occuring however I will keep hope alive. I thought I woould take a look at Oregon's shot and some of the scenarios needed for a New Years Fiesta in Arizona for the Ducks. This of course is under the most important assumption out there, that Oregon wins it's next three games. In addition I would cheer for USC and Texas to win out, there is no way that any other Big 12 team can earn a BCS bid unless they can somehow beat Texas in the Big 12 championship game. Looking at the jokers in the North that is very unlikely. USC's ranking is Oregon's #1 SOS help so a USC loss would hurt Oregon immensely particularly if it was to a undefeated UCLA squad. Again the key is trying to eliminate as many 1 loss teams from the landscape. Undefeated BCS conference teams are mortal locks for the BCS. There are five reamining but at most only 4 could finish the season undefeated as Georgia and Alabama would match up in a hyopthetical SEC Conference championship game.

This week's team to cheer for are the following:

UNC over Miami
Illinois over Wisconsin
Nebraska over Oklahoma
Utah State over Alabma (when pigs fly . . .)
Florida over Georgia
USC over WSU
Maryland over Florida State
Purdue over Penn State
Florida over Georgia (if Georgia wins on saturday however it may be better for Oregon if the Dawgs win out and hope that at least one other team beats Alabama besides Georgia. The same scenario could be used for Alabama as well. Zero losses or two or more losses is the key number we are looking for)
Oregon State over Arizona
Stanford over UCLA (game of the week for the Ducks, UCLA needs to get another loss for helping Oregon's Fiesta and even Holiday Bowl chances)
Texas over Oklahoma State
North Texas over LSU
Montana over Portland State
Fresno State over Hawaii (very key for Oregon to have Fresno win out except for their matchup against USC as they will be most likely Oregon's 2nd highest rated opponent this year)
Arizona State over Washington

A key for Oregon would be a third loss by Notre Dame, ideally this would be against Stanford however realistically I only see Tennesse with a shot of beating the Irish. Right now I would show the following teams as making the BCS (note currently Notre Dame is ranked 15th which is not BCS eligible for an at large bid but I believe they are the most likely 2 loss team to get an at large bid due to name recognition and following)

My prediction right now for the 8 BCS bids and matchups are below:

Pac 10 - USC
Big 10 - Penn State
Big East - West Virginia
ACC - Va Tech
Big 12 - Texas
SEC- Alabama

At large Georgia and Notre Dame

The Bowl matchups would be

Rose - USC vs Texas
Orange - Va Tech vs Alabama
Sugar - Georgia vs West Virginia
Fiesta - Penn State vs Notre Dame

At large - Georgia and Notre Dame

this scenario would leave a likely 10-1 UCLA team in San Diego with a Holiday Bowl bid and a 10-1 Oregon stuck in El Paso for the Sun Bowl.

myintrotoletuknow

Thought I'd start one of these up . . . I have been on Myspace (http://www.myspace.com/pete4ducks) for almost a year and that was my first experience with the whole blog thing, been liking it so far . . . well who am I may you ask? I am a 30 year-old man (so far being 30 has rocked I was so scared to leave my 20's but it has been great) who moved from from Eugene, Oregon to Portland, Oregon in April of 2005. I guess you could say my late 20's were somewhat of a quarter-life crisis. I had a good stable job stable job that I knew how to do well but unhappiness from my personal life and boredom from the sameness of my job in Corporate America and life in general swelled up to the point where I knew I needed a change. I have enjoyed my time in Portland, in a way re-inventing myself in the process. I work for a non-profit organization in Lake Oswego I enjoy here though I hate my commute. In between leaving my job in Eugene and moving to Portland I spent a great couple of week's in Asia visiting my parents in Taiwan and then we went to Thailand to spend some time on the beach in Koh Samui and then off to Bangkok for a few days of shopping and trying to avoid the scorching heat (106 F with tons of humidity).

My interests are varied. I am a very big sports fan but outside of the NFL I could really care less about pro sports. College is definitely where I like to be when it comes to athletics viewing. My love is the University of Oregon (www.goducks.com) Ducks of-course but I just love the emotion of th college athletics so much more than professional sports. I was never very much a political person however the Bush administration really changed that for me. Somedays I hope that I could wake up from the bad dream that has been leveled on this country and planet by the Bush cartel. I guess my goals for the future are varied. I am working on plans to develop a eco-friendly resort somewhere in the developing world, whether that be Central America, the South Pacific or even somehwere else I would love the opportunity to live in paradise yet at the same time fight to protect the culture and environment of the area I move to and prove local folks with employment opportunities. I like my job now but I would really enjoy moving into something that allowed me to travel internationally frequentely, so if anyone has any ideas of how I might go about doing that I would love to hear from you.

Well that is my first blog of hopefully many to come. Hope my spelling and grammar weren't too offensive . . .

Pete