BERTH CONTROL THRILL

Destiny’s Wild — Thanks to the Beavers upsetting the Sun Devils on Saturday night, the Bruins are back in control of their own destiny:  If UCLA can BeatSC and Stanford, they automatically win the South Division and earn a berth in the Pac-12 Championship Game against Oregon

Not many people thought it would happen this fast, but after Utah lost 2 games and Arizona State lost last night, UCLA is back in the driver’s seat for Pac-12 South supremacy… and that’s not all:  It looks like if the Bruins knock off the trojans and the Cardinal — with both games being at Home in the Rose Bowl — they would get to face Oregon, who will probably be #1 in the Country.  A victory over #1 could easily vault the Bruins into a Top 4 Ranking, and therefore, the Bruins could qualify for the first-ever NCAA College Football Playoff.

After the Bruins lost consecutive Home games against Utah and Oregon, it seemed like their Playoff Dreams were completely dead.  But with all the upsets that followed, and with the Bruins winning 4 in a row since then, the sky is once again the limit for the Blue and Gold.  To be in this position, UCLA needed help:  They needed ASU to lose a game against either Oregon State, Washington State, or Arizona.  Only Arizona was expected to have a chance, because  the lowly Beavers and Cougars could only beat the Devils if Hell Froze Over.  Well, Corvallis may not be Hell, but on Saturday night, it was A Cold Day in Corvallis, and ASU couldn’t handle it.  The frigid Devils scored only 3 points in the second half, as OSU came back from a 24-14 halftime deficit to win 35-27.  They got a Touchdown Bomb and a Pick-6 in the 4th quarter, and then sacked the ASU QB twice on the final desperation drive to put the game away.

ASU is not dead yet, but they would need help:  In a turnabout-is-fair-play scenario, they now need someone to knock off the Bruins, since UCLA destroyed ASU earlier in the year.  Now the Devils are trojan fans — joining Satan himself in rooting for the Dark Side.