Rose Bowl Still Not Out of the Question for USC

Despite the fact that the USC Trojans have been throughly embarrassed twice in the past three games by Oregon and Stanford alike, the Rose Bowl and Pac-10 championship are still not out of the question for Pete Carroll’s bunch according to Brendan Loy. While it is still hard to imagine this scenario playing out, it involves Washington State winning, it is still interesting to take a closer look at:

[T]here would have to be a 6 way tie for the conference lead (with 6-3 records) among Oregon, Arizona, Stanford, Cal, Oregon State and USC. Under that scenario the first tie-breaker is the record against those teams and USC, Oregon State and Arizona would have the best records at 3-2 against those teams. Then USC would get the nod because it would have beaten both Oregon State and Arizona.

So what is the likelihood of such a tie? Oregon would have to lose to Oregon State and Arizona. Arizona would have to lose to USC but beat Oregon and Arizona State. Stanford would have to lose to Cal. Cal would have to beat Stanford and Washington. USC would have to beat UCLA and Arizona. Oregon State would have to beat Oregon, but lose to Washington State!!!!

Those scenarios are not entirely far-fetched…except of course for the one with Oregon State somehow beating Oregon, after losing the week before to Washington State.

It’s a little far-fetched, but entertaining to think about.