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By Cliff Kirkpatrick
Gazette-Times

It’s the time of the season to take a look at where people are saying the Oregon State football team is heading for the holidays.

If the Beavers win the next two games they play in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1 for the first time since 1965.

That’s the only given scenario. One loss and the Beavers drop to the Dec. 30 Holiday Bowl in San Diego, and two losses sends them to the Dec. 31 Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas or the pre-Christmas Las Vegas Bowl.

Those are the likely situations, but whatever happens won’t be official until Dec. 7. The consensus is the Beavers will lose one of the last two games to keep Southern California in the Rose Bowl.

Here’s the rundown of where OSU is predicted to go: CBS Sports-Holiday vs. Oklahoma State, NBC Sports-Las Vegas vs. Texas Christian, SportPrejections.com-Holiday vs. Missouri, College Football News-Holiday vs. Oklahoma State, ESPN.com-Rose vs. Penn State.

With more time to study these scenarios, and as blog reader Bill pointed out in the last post, there is a doomsday scenario for the Beavers.

If they lose the last two games and Arizona wins the last two, they would be tied for third place in the Pacific-10 Conference. USC would go to the Rose, Oregon to the Holiday and the Sun gets to pick.

Arizona hasn’t been to a bowl game in 10 years, so its fans will travel to El Paso in droves. OSU was there in 2006.

Fans in seats is all that matters to the Sun Bowl people. The Beavers would be left out for the Las Vegas Bowl to take.

Recruiting review

The Beavers have been busy recruiting as always, but the returns are coming at a faster pace this season. The combination of success in recent years and big-time wins this season has enticed 18 known commitments already.

It’s earlier than usual for the Beavers to have that many. And according to Rivals.com, eight are three-star recruits. That’s getting to be the usual amount of talent at that level. There were 10 last season.

Rivals.com also ranks OSU 58th in the nation at this point, and seventh in the Pac-10 above No. 63 Arizona State, No. 78 Washington State and No. 88 Washington.

USC is No. 1 as usual. The big surprise is No. 20 Stanford is second in the Pac-10. No. 27 UCLA, No. 44 California, No. 47 Oregon and No. 53 Arizona round out the conference.

The Beavers still have more to do. Here are the number breakdowns that fascinate people. They lose 19 scholarship players and have 20 to give because defensive end Simi Kuli didn’t use his when he didn’t academically qualify this term.

With 18 commitments, Kuli if he qualifies in the winter and greyshirt running back Jovan Stevenson coming in the winter the Beavers are at their limit. Don’t forget quarterback Peter Lalich, a transfer from Virginia, will be on scholarship in the winter, putting them over the 85 scholarship limit.

Don’t worry. Expect a few greyshirts out of this class and the normal situation of players leaving the program for various reasons so the numbers work.

So if some of the athletes the Beavers are still interested in commit between now and signing day, they’ll take them.

As for this class, it shows the Beavers have reached the point where they don’t need quick fixes. It’s all about development, which is where every program wants to be.

Every area of the field is addressed for the future. Depth and players for the immediate future are already on the roster.

Covering kicks

One area the Beavers don’t match up well with Arizona in today’s game is on special teams. The Wildcats have dynamic kickoff and punt returners in Mike Thomas, Keola Antolin and William Wright.

Thomas averages 13.5 yards on punt returns with one TD. Wright returned two of them for a 29-yard average. Thomas averages 21.8 yards on kickoff returns and Antolin 23.5 yards.

The Beavers have improved covering kicks the last two games, and that’s because punter Johnny Hekker and kicker Justin Kahut placed the ball in better positions for the cover teams. That is with the exception of the opening kickoff against California last weekend, which was returned 51 yards.

“Hang time is paramount in coverage,” coach Mike Riley said. “The same thing holds true in kickoff coverage. It will all be better, to give them more time and put a net around (Thomas). We need people in synch with each other.”

Cliff Kirkpatrick covers the Oregon State football team for the Corvallis Gazette-Times. He can be reached at cliff.kirkpatrick@lee.net.