Great matchup. Beavs a slight favorite. I think it will come down to motivation. Oregon State was a few plays away from winning the Pac-10 and playing in the Rose Bowl and fall all the way to the Vegas Bowl. BYU had BCS dreams to start the year, got waxed by FSU. They rebounded and played well. Max Hall and Sean Canfield are a couple of solid quarterbacks. Good decision makers.

I think the Mt West BYU team will be more fired up to take on a BCS team and that gives them a slight edge. The talent edge is definitly in Oregon State's favor. Remember how FSUs offense just thrashed BYU?..well they haven't played anyone nearly as explosive as Quizz and James Rodgers. If Oregon State comes to play...and I think they will becuase Mike Riley is a great coach and gets his teams ready for bowl games.

03 vs a Mountain West team in the Las Vegas Bowl. The spread was 2 (sound familiar?) and OSU thumped New Mexico 55-14.

04- Beat Norte Dame 38-21 in the Insight Bowl.

06- Beat Mizzou 39-38 in the Sun Bowl

07- 21-14 over Maryland in the Emerald Bowl

08- They played Oregon in their last game of the season and if they won they would have played in the Rose Bowl. Well the Ducks hung 65 on them and ruined their Rose Bowl dreams..very similiar to this year execpet the Beavers should have won this year. They played Pitt in the Sun Bowl coming off that loss and it was an ugly game that Oregon State won 3-0.

On the other hand, BYU has taken on Pac 10 foes in 4 straight (this year is 5) Las Vegas Bowls. They are 2-2, losing last year to Arizone 31-21 and losing in 05 to Cal 35-18. 06 and 07 were victories against Oregon and UCLA, 38-8 and 17-16..respectively.

This is one of the bowl games I am most looking forward to. I know BYU is going to send Max Hall and all of the seniors who have done so much to restore the program to respectability. But in the end I think Oregon State is more athletic and explosive offensively and should take care of business.

I took Oregon State, although this one is really up for grabs.

Respectability might be the word you're looking for.

I'm going to go with Oregon State, but the Fighting Mormons will give them all they can handle.

In case anybody is wondering about the gifts for tonight's participants...

Sony Gift Suite
Fossil Watch
New Era Cap
Ogio Fugitive Laptop Pack

sjmvsfscs08 wrote: Respectability might be the word you're looking for.

I'm going to go with Oregon State, but the Fighting Mormons will give them all they can handle.

Thank you. I was struggling to find it.

darbypitcher22 wrote: In case anybody is wondering about the gifts for tonight's participants...

Sony Gift Suite
Fossil Watch
New Era Cap
Ogio Fugitive Laptop Pack

Plus a casino voucher to any Sam Boyd establishment in town. I would imagine the Mormans are all over this.

Hard game to predict. I went with BYU.

BYU better win. I got 10k on this game.

Pick6 wrote: BYU better win. I got 10k on this game.

LoL. I'm sure you do. Maybe 10 confidence points in your bowl pool.

Big play there. Smart play by BYU to realize it was a fumble and return it.

BYU up 17-7 with gale force winds out there in Vegas..... Had the catch net get caught up in one of the goal posts and caused a delay.....

Canfield is playing like hot garbage pizza.

Oregon State is pretty much playing like crap

BYU 23
Oregon State 7
6:22 left in the second quarter

Wow didn't think it would be like that.

What does this say about the PAC10? Anything or am I reading too much into it. Its not good to have your #2 team getting spanked by a non BCS school.

Wow. Total beatdown.

Hopefully more people will begin to take the Mountain West seriously. How many bowl game beat downs of ranked competition do they have to dish out

Bite the curb Beavers

37-7

YES!!!

Yet another example of why the BCS is so flawed. This is an Oregon state team that was basically one drive away from playing in a BCS game, getting beat to the tune of 30 points by a non-bcs school that didn't even win their conference. Not only would they have been in a BCS game, Oregon likely would have gotten an at-large bid, knocking one of the three undefeated teams (likely Boise, a team that beat Oregon) out of the BCS. This is irony at it's finest; but I'm sure they'll just ignore it like they always do.

LoL..didn't finish runner up in their conference.^^^

TBone14 wrote: Great matchup. Beavs a slight favorite. I think it will come down to motivation. Oregon State was a few plays away from winning the Pac-10 and playing in the Rose Bowl and fall all the way to the Vegas Bowl.

They didn't look like they cared and frankly I don't know if they did. Mike Riley has done a great job but tonight BYU looked like a team with something to prove for themselves and for their conference and Oregon State looked like they thought they were too sweet to be in the Vegas Bowl and got it put to them.

Also, it makes conference arguments ridiculous. So is the ACC now way better than the Pac 10? FSU thrashed BYU on their home field. No! Conference supremacy arguments are ridiculous and stupid and don't prove anything.

We need a playoff, badly.

Oregon State looked like they didn't care

This looked like a case of a team not wanting to go to that bowl game. When you're a few plays away from the Rose Bowl, and then you have your heart ripped out, it must be hard.

Its gotta be hard but its up to the coaching staff and seniors to rally the club together. Doesn't look like they did that at all

Why is that everytime a BCS conferences gets their doors blown off by a mid-major, it was because they "didn't want to be there" or "didn't care?"

Its never "wow, BYU is a pretty good football team" Or "maybe Utah should get a chance at the national championship"