Cliff Kirkpatrick

It looks like USC took the hint that Oregon State football coach Mike Riley likes it in Corvallis. The Trojans hired Lane Kiffin of Tennessee as coach. Read it here.

The move came after Kiffin was with the Volunteers one season. Very strange. So what are your thoughts on this one?

Can he keep USC rolling along, or is he just babbysitting while the NCAA violations get sorted out?

I wonder if a minority coach was interviewed?

However this thing shakes out down south, this is a great time for the Beavers. Riley and former USC coach Pete Carroll ran neck-and-neck in terms of succes in the Pac-10 in recent years. It’s time for OSU to step up.

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The Oregon State football team needs two more wins to become bowl eligible. One of those wins should come Saturday against UCLA. Beating the Bruins is crucial.

“It’s what I’m referring to as a defining moment,” coach Mike Riley said. “You either take a big step forward and set yourself up for bigger and better things or go into a deeper hole. This is a defining moment.”

If the Beavers win here there’s a sure-win ahead at Washington State to get the Beavers to six wins to reach the minimum 6-6 record. They will be competitive in the the Cal and Washington games with a good to high probability to win.

Oregon will be tough, especially in Autzen Stadium. However, it’s a rivalry game so anything can happen.

“The big picture is always in the back of everyone’s mind, but for right now it’s UCLA,” QB Sean Canfield said.

Unless the Beavers sweep the rest of the games, my preseason prediction of the Las Vegas Bowl looks good. A sweep puts them in contention for the Holiday Bowl, depending what others do.

Anything between two-four wins puts them in the Sun Bowl and lower range. The Sun Bowl won’t take them back two years in a row. The Emerald Bowl had them two years ago, so I expect a trade to happen with the Las Vegas Bowl since the Beavers were last there in 2003.

With that, here’s a look at what people are saying about the Beavers and where they’ll end up. CBS Sports has them going to the Emerald Bowl, ESPN has them the Las Vegas, Fantasy Players have them in the Holiday, Scout.com says Poinsettia and Rivals.com says Emerald.

And to get you in the mood for some football, the above video is the OSU produced player pump-up video shown before the USC game.

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The Pacific-10 Conference suspended a game official for missing a facemask call in Saturday’s game between the Oregon State football team and Southern California, the conference announced.

The conference didn’t name the official or the play involved. First-year commissioner Larry Scott called the his blatant and dangerous in a statement.

There were several controversial missed calls in the game. The most blatant was when USC safety Taylor Mays clotheslined OSU receiver James Rodgers and ripped his helmet off, after Rodgers caught a touchdown pass.

Just click this link to my blog entry from Sunday to see two photos of no-calls against the Beavers. There was a discussion in my office today that it was the typical look-the-other-way deal because it’s USC. Kudos to the new commissioner for not doing just that.

As for Mays, if the NFL doesn’t work out he could call the WWE for a tryout.

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