Cal, Beavers hold edge at the turn.

Byline: Bob Clark The Register-Guard

Oregon State and California, the two Pac-10 teams that have gone the longest since their last appearance in the Rose Bowl, enter November as the only conference teams in complete control of their destiny for that berth.

Cal hasn't reached the Rose Bowl game since winning the Pacific Coast Conference title in the 1958 season, and the Beavers last played in the Rose Bowl game following the 1964 season. Arizona has never played in the Rose Bowl but didn't join the league until 1978.

The Beavers (3-1 in the Pac-10) play host to Arizona State tonight, and Oregon (4-1) is at California (3-1) this afternoon.

If either the Beavers or Bears, who play Nov. 15 in Corvallis, win their remaining games, they are guaranteed of playing in Pasadena on Jan. 1, based on the league's tiebreaking procedure for OSU or, that by winning out, Cal could be the only team at 8-1. After hosting Oregon today, the Bears play USC next Saturday before their trip to OSU.

Even if Oregon wins its final four games, it still needs a loss by USC (4-1) to earn the Rose Bowl berth, because the Trojans hold the primary tiebreaker, a victory over the Ducks.

OSU has a win over USC as its potential tiebreaker, should both teams finish 8-1 in Pac-10 games.

That would hold true even if the Trojans, by virtue of their ranking, are guaranteed a berth in a Bowl Championship Series game, including the national title contest.

Should the Trojans move up to first or second in the final BCS poll, "our interpretation is that OSU goes to the Rose Bowl as our automatic qualifier to the BCS and that USC goes to the (national title) game by virtue of being ranked 1 or 2," Pac-10 spokesman Jim Muldoon said. "USC's status would not affect OSU."

Muldoon said that would also be the case if USC were guaranteed a berth in another BCS game by being third or fourth in the final BCS rankings. USC is currently fifth in the BCS.

If USC ends up as the Pac-10 champion but isn't ranked first or second and is thus the league's automatic qualifier for the Rose Bowl, a second Pac-10 team would be eligible for an at-large selection to a BCS bowl only if it is ranked in the top 14 of the final BCS poll. Oregon is currently 24th.

Arizona and Stanford (each 3-2 in conference games) also could factor into the Pac-10 championship race if the top four teams stumble. In each of the past two seasons, since the league went to a nine-game round-robin schedule, the title was shared by two teams with two losses each. Before that, the league winner hadn't had as many as two losses since 1993.

If more than two teams tie for the Pac-10 title, which could occur this season only among teams with two or more defeats, the Rose Bowl representative would be decided if one team had defeated all the others in the deadlock.

If no team held that advantage, "a comparison of the tied teams' records against the other tied teams shall be made and the team having the best record against the other tied teams shall be the Rose Bowl representative," according to the conference media guide. "If two or more teams are still tied after this comparison, the appropriate two-team or multiple-team tie-breaking procedures shall be repeated among those teams still under consideration."

If that still doesn't resolve a deadlock, the tied teams are then evaluated based on their performance against the other Pac-10 teams in descending order of the conference finish until one has the advantage.

After that, if more than two teams remain tied, the team with the highest ranking by the BCS will be the Rose Bowl representative. Only if that provision doesn't determine a Rose Bowl representative would the tiebreaker become the team that has gone the longest without being there, or as the Pac-10 explains it, "the teams most recently earning Rose Bowl or Bowl Championship Series automatic selection shall be eliminated."