Cliff Kirkpatrick

The Oregon State football team moved to No. 20 in the AP and coaches polls and No. 19 the BCS poll.

The Beavers have won three straight and five of the last six games. Winning the last two games of the season enhances their postseason game, possibility as high as the Rose Bowl.

“We’re glad to be ranked, but we’d like to make it better,” coach Mike Riley said Sunday night. “We have improved. We’ve gotten ourselves in a good position and dug out of a hole. We want to keep that going with momentum.”

Riley said he didn’t figure out the possibilities for the Beavers to reach the Rose Bowl, and didn’t address them with his team. He just figures if his team wins the last two games they did their part.

Injury update
RB Jacquizz Rodgers (glute stinger) worked out with the team Sunday, and will be ready for practice Tuesday.

LT Michael Philipp (strained knee), WR Damola Adeniji (elbow), S Jordan Poyer (shoulder) and LB Devin Unga (stinger) took it easy but will be ready for this week’s game.

DT Castro Masaniai was sick and skipped the workout.

Pulling the starters
There was some grumbling from Washington on Saturday about OSU not pulling the starters earlier in the game.

And there’s some history against Washington State about throwing a late TD pass last year and running up the score with the backups.

“I don’t worry about that because I know our intentions,” Riley said. “We are only playing the game. How we play the game is our business. We try to do what’s right for the game and our team. It’s a valid argument we could have substituted a series earlier. We didn’t talk about it. We were just playing the game.”

Will you do that earlier against Washington State?

“We’d like to be able to do that,” Riley said. “We don’t go into a game thinking when that will be. We just go in to win it.

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