FanHouse JeremiahMasoli

LOS ANGELES -- USC was picked to win the Pac-10 football title for the seventh consecutive year by the media, and yet the coaches from all nine competitors -- including Arizona's Mike Stoops (right) and even USC coach Pete Carroll -- touched on the uncertainty of the Trojans this season.

USC received 28 of the 32 votes with California receiving three while third-place Oregon collected one vote. The Trojans will be breaking in a new quarterback and several new defenders since 11 players were taken in the NFL Draft. Perhaps this is the year another school emerges and takes the crown out of Los Angeles, but they approached Thursday precariously and with respect. There were no declarations that USC is going down or the reign is over -- not even from UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel.

With their 65-38 win over the Oregon State Beavers tonight, the Oregon Ducks became heroes to a lot of people in some far-flung places. Boise, Idaho is one of those places, as well as Columbus, Ohio, and a lot of other locales in Big Ten country.

The Ducks left little doubt about who was the better team tonight, rolling up almost 700 yards of offense. Two guys named Jeremiah were at the center of it all. Running back Jeremiah Johnson ran for over 200 yards, while quarterback Jeremiah Masoli passed for 277 more, including three touchdowns. Not even 13 penalties against them could slow down the Ducks.

The loss ends Oregon State's hopes of making it to the Rose Bowl. That's unfortunate. Beaver quarterback Lyle Moevao was as brilliant tonight as he has been all season long, passing for five touchdowns against two interceptions. Throw in two lost fumbles and a Duck offense playing completely over the moon and it's not hard to figure out how Oregon wound up winning so convincingly.

Now Southern Cal will head to the Rose Bowl to face Penn State in a matchup that absolutely no one outside of LA or State College will be looking forward to. Oh, and there's a BCS at-large slot open now.