Commentary

You don’t have to sort through the coach-and-athlete-speak to know the truth.

Oregon State is not overjoyed with a berth in the Emerald Bowl.

All you had to do was stick around in Autzen Stadium after the Beavers’ held on for a wild 38-31 Civil War win in the second overtime.

The Beavers weren’t chanting, “We’re state champs!” or “We own Autzen.” No, it was “San Diego! San Diego!”

The Beavers wanted the Holiday Bowl, the game they thought they earned by beating Oregon.

Trouble, however, was brewing in BCS land.

When Oklahoma beat Missouri for the Big 12 championship and West Virginia lost to Pittsburgh, too many big names were on the table after the Big Cash System gleefully grabbed LSU and The Ohio State for the national title game.

Then the Rose Bowl went with tradition and TV in taking Illinois from the Big Ten.

Kansas slipped into the Orange Bowl and the Sugar Bowl snatched up Georgia as the second SEC team.

A 10-2 Arizona State team out of the Pac-10? No thanks.

The Fiesta Bowl went with Oklahoma and West Virgina and the Sun Devils dropped to the Holiday Bowl. The first domino had fallen.

For any team but the Beavers, the disappointment would have been fleeting. After all, the Sun Bowl was waiting.

Just not for Oregon State.

The Beavers made the trip to El Paso last year and left with the winner’s trophy. But the Pac-10’s number three bowl is played in such a hard to reach area that consecutive trips are a recipe for a low turnout.

Hello, Oregon.

Goodbye, Civil War winner.

Nothing personal.

No doubt the bowl committee believed it was the right thing to do, at least for the Sun Bowl’s concerns. More fans equal more tickets purchased.

Fair? Of course not. But money tends to override the importance of fair play.

So here we are. The third-place team out of the Pac-10 taking on 6-6 Maryland, the eighth-place team from the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Not even a trip to Las Vegas to ease the pain of the slight.

That’s not to say that the Emerald Bowl is a bad place for the Beavers to land. No doubt they will be welcomed in San Francisco for the game.

There should be quite a few orange-clad fans in attendance. There are plenty of OSU graduates in the Bay Area and it’s an easy trip to make for fans living in the Pacific Northwest.

The atmosphere could come close to a home game for the Beavers.

Nevertheless, the Pac-10 should work with the bowls to make sure the scenario never reoccurs.

The real problem is the quality of the Pac-10 bowl tie-ins drops significantly after the Rose Bowl and Holiday Bowl. The Insight Bowl left and Las Vegas is happy with its Western Athletic Conference ties.

The addition of the Poinsettia Bowl in San Diego next year helps, but it won’t bring in major matchups.

Major changes aren’t forthcoming. Pacific-10 Conference Commissioner Tom Hansen likes the lineup as it is.

Hansen isn’t interested in adding a New Year’s bowl. That’s the Rose Bowl’s territory.

The rest are just fine, thanks.

“We have a good, solid lineup of bowls,” he told the Gazette-Times in 2004.

Nothing has changed since.

A system in which conference tie-ins with bowls are eliminated or limited could be interesting. Imagine the Beavers taking on Kentucky in, say, the Champs Sports Bowl in Orlando.

A nice thought.

Meanwhile, the Beavers have a bowl game to play. Again.

Seven of nine isn’t too shabby.

Kevin Hampton covers sports for the Gazette-Times. He can be reached at kevin.hampton@lee.net. Read his blog at www.gazettetimes.com