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Beaver win might be costly for Pac-10 schools.

Article Excerpt
Byline: PAC-10 NOTEBOOK By Bob Clark The Register-Guard

Forget the league standings and the glorious day for Oregon State. The bottom line of USC's loss to the Beavers is that it could cost every Pac-10 team about $400,000.

That's because with two Pac-10 teams playing in Bowl Championship Series games if the Trojans had reached the title game and California had been selected as an at-large team by the Rose Bowl, the payouts would have been about $15 million for the first BCS berth and $4.5 million for the second, and the Pac-10 splits the income among all 10 schools.

Instead, it's down to the Rose Bowl for the Pac-10 winner, and only the payout from that game for the league to split up.

Oh, sure, there's the optimistic view that somehow the Pac-10 runner-up still gets invited to another BCS game. USC went to the Orange Bowl after the 2004 season, but that was with no Pac-10 team in the Rose Bowl.

This time around, does the Orange Bowl pick the Trojans - or Cal with two losses - when the Miami game could instead have a Southeastern Conference at-large team, an Auburn or Florida? Uh, probably not.

Or could the Trojans climb as high as No. 2 again, and reach the title game? Again, not very likely. Even USC coach Pete Carroll said he's done discussing BCS possibilities.

`I won't spend any more time on it,' Carroll told the Los Angeles Daily News. `We have to win every game. That's all. That's the issue right now.'

The Trojans do control their destiny in the Rose Bowl race. Win out, and they play in...

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