By Pigskin Pete

 Collegiate football fans along the nation’s left coast enter November with bowl matchup probabilities impossible to sanely handicap.  Seldom has the Pac 10 offered more power-packed late season clashes.  

Consider that half this conference’s members deservedly ranked among the nation’s top 25 teams going into November, with a combined record of 29-3.  Unbeaten UCLA must play WSU in the frozen north, host powerful Oregon and windup with bitter rival USC.  Washington probably has the toughest November row to hoe, hosting Stanford, traveling to OSU, hosting WSU, then traveling to Miami.  Television poobahs, swayed by preseason prognosticators, caused UO and OSU to move their traditional titanic to December 1 for unconflicted national coverage.

The sainted but silly Bowl Championship Series (BCS) that avoids a true national championship playoff faces some nightmare possibilities.  It seems likely that come December, there will be three major conference unbeaten teams.  Leaving one out of the title game will be a doozy of a controversy.  Even worse could be the possibility that we see in perusing the games left on the schedules of teams deserving BCS consideration going into November.  That lineup could leave no less than 13 major conference schools with one loss apiece (Georgia, Maryland, Miami, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, Purdue, South Carolina, Texas, UCLA, Virginia Tech
and Washington) and no unbeaten elevens.  One thing for certain regarding the BCS final ranking:  WSU won’t be there when you factor in their weak non-conference schedule that includes Idaho, Boise State and Montana State.

Seattle finale foreseen

Columnist Ron Bellamy of the Eugene Register Guard has raised the possibility of  an Oregon vs. Washington renewal of the teams’ classic rivalry in the new Seattle Bowl on December 27.  It sure would fill the stands, and Seattle hotel rooms!  This pairing woulddepend upon late season losses driving both Ducks and Huskies below UCLA, WSU and Stanford in overall records.

NCAA administrative meetings following the current football schedule are expected to tighten up requirements for Division I gridiron status.  Key qualification is expected to be that a team must average a minimum of 15,000 paid fans per home game.  Fourteen institutions failed this test last season.  These included Arkansas State, Ball State, Central Florida, Houston, Kent State, Louisiana Lafayette, Louisiana Monroe, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee State, Northern Illinois, North Texas, San Jose State, Southern Missippi and Utah State.  If such membership restrictions are put in place, they won’t be in effect until 2004.

PGE Park follies

Well, all that bad stuff finally hit the fan with renovated Civic Stadium fallout.  The inimitable Marshall Glickman (no valid chip from his justly respected dad Harry) is leaving town and a monumental debt for others to try and recover.  The latter is simply not going to happen under any group’s stewardship until reliance upon minor league baseball and soccer is lifted.  Why would you pay to lease an executive suite to watch inconsequential action on the field?

And does the 22nd largest market in America deserve better?  Yes, and there are healthy television revenues awaiting for those who can place one of major league baseball’s failing franchises in the Rose City.  More bucks will have to be spent, however, to bring ol’ PGE up to big league snuff.  Meanwhile, Portland State football (darling of one of the primary private investors in the revamped stadium) is the best hope for gate revenue and of late, the Viking grid program has failed to get back to the halcyon promotional days of Pokey Allen, who made even Division II play pack the seats with national championshp possibilities.

Roses and Raspberries…bright red posies to the Dufur Rangers, who continue their quest for another Class A 8-man state prep grid title and don’t forget to be at PGE Park when they go for the brass ring…raspberries to the Blazers floundering about trying to come up with a television coverage program that will benefit poor Paul Allen more than the fans…roses to OSU coach Dennis Erickson for telling it like it is with his disappointing record this season…and raspberries to the press which elevated the Beavers’ expectations to impossible levels, despite severe graduation losses from last season’s winners…roses to fans of ‘the other football’ who can watch the highest level of collegiate play, both men’s and women’s, right here in Portland at the University of Portland’s superb soccer venue…raspberries to anyone who doesn’t think Washington State’s Mike Rice should be a prime candidate for national coach of the year, no matter how his season ends…roses to keeping our state’s best high school quarterbacks at home for college as in Oregon’s Joey Harrington and the nationally noted freshmen Derek Anderson of Scappoose at OSU and Kellen Clemens at UO.  Anderson is already seeing playing time and Clemens has been a standout in practice while sitting out this season.