A fan hangs from the goal post it was tore down in celebration of Oklahoma State's 44-10 win over Oklahoma in an NCAA college football game in Stillwater, Okla., Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
A fan hangs from the goal post it was tore down in celebration of Oklahoma State's 44-10 win over Oklahoma in an NCAA college football game in Stillwater, Okla., Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
Michigan State's Keshawn Martin is tackled by Wisconsin's Chris Borland during the second half of the Big Ten conference championship NCAA college football game on Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/AJ Mast)
LSU head coach Les Miles reacts after their 42-10 win over Georgia in the Southeastern Conference championship NCAA college football game, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)
LSU cornerback Tyrann Mathieu (7) reacts to a fumble recovery against Georgia during the second half of the Southeastern Conference championship NCAA college football game, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)
Texas running back Jeremy Hills (5) leaps over an attempted tackle by Baylor safety K.J. Morton (8) as Sam Holl (25), defensive tackle Tracy Robertson center rear, and Texas' David Snow (78) look on during the second half of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011, in Waco, Texas. Baylor won 48-24. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
LSU did its part to make sure both the Tigers and Alabama get into the BCS national title game. Then Oklahoma State gave the voters a reason to rethink the rematch.
The top-ranked Tigers locked up a spot in the championship on Jan. 9 in New Orleans with a 42-10 victory against No. 12 Georgia in the Southeastern Conference title game in Atlanta on Saturday.
Oklahoma State followed that with a 44-10 blowout of rival Oklahoma in Stillwater.
"They had their shot," Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy said of Alabama. "Give us ours."
LSU (13-0) will be first in the BCS standings when they come out on Sunday. And this latest rout by the Tigers fortified Alabama's chances of holding on to the second spot and holding off Oklahoma State, which was third last week.
"I would certainly understand if college football decides it should be two SEC teams playing for the national championship," LSU coach Les Miles said. "It's a very special conference with very special teams."
The Tigers beat the Tide (11-1) 9-6 in overtime at Tuscaloosa, Ala., a month ago. Alabama is the only team in the country to stay within 13 points of LSU this season. Other than the Alabama game, the Tigers' closest game since September was a 24-point victory against Arkansas.
The Cowboys can claim to have more quality wins than the Tide ? Oklahoma State now has five victories against teams in the BCS top 25, Alabama has two ? but their double-overtime loss at Iowa State (6-6) two weeks ago has been a drag on their resume.
"I don't think there's any question Oklahoma State should play in the big game," Gundy said.
He added: "And if we'd have won this game 17-14, I don't know if I'd have said it. ... When you win by 34 points, we deserve the right."
Oklahoma State was fifth in both the Harris and coaches' polls, while Alabama was an overwhelming No. 2 behind LSU. The Cowboys caught another break when Virginia Tech, which was ahead of them in both those polls last week, was beaten 38-10 by Clemson in the Atlantic Coast Conference title game.
If the voters need any help making their decisions, Oklahoma State provided a mass email titled The Case for Oklahoma State in the BCS Title Game, which hit sports writers' inboxes a little after 1 a.m. EST.
There's no doubt Oklahoma State will move up Sunday, but will it be enough to catch Alabama?
Clemson's surprisingly easy victory in the ACC title game send the Tigers to the Orange Bowl with their first conference title in 20 years.
Oregon locked up its spot in the Rose Bowl by winning the Pac-12 title game Friday night.
The Ducks will face Wisconsin, which beat Michigan State 42-39 in a memorable first Big Ten championship game. The Badgers will be making their second straight trip to the Rose Bowl. The Ducks are in it for the second time in three seasons, with a national championship game trip in between.
Championship Saturday started with an upset.
Case Keenum and No. 7 Houston were pounded 49-28 by Southern Mississippi in the Conference USA championship game, a loss that will cost the Cougars a spot in the BCS and the millions of dollars that goes with it.
The high-scoring Cougars needed to complete their perfect regular season and win the league to become this year's BCS buster, and the first team from C-USA to reach the BCS.
A BCS bid would have netted the league about $7 million dollars.
With Houston out of the picture, it TCU has a shot to go back to the BCS for a third consecutive season.
TCU, which beat lowly UNLV 56-9, would need to move into the top 16 in the final BCS standings on Sunday to earn an automatic bid, because the Big East's conference champion ? West Virginia ? will most likely not jump ahead of the Horned Frogs.
TCU was No. 18 in last week's BCS standings.
The Big East was first to resolve its title race Saturday. When Cincinnati beat Connecticut 35-27, it moved West Virginia into position to earn a BCS bid by winning a three-way tiebreaker between the Mountaineers, Cincinnati and Louisville.
The Mountaineers are likely heading to the Sugar or Orange bowl.
Houston's drop in BCS standings could also affect how the at-large bids shakeout on Saturday.
Stanford seems like a lock for an at-large to the Fiesta Bowl, and speculation was that Michigan would receive an at-large bid to the Sugar. But the idle Wolverines need to move into the top 14 of the final standings. They were 16th coming into the final weekend.
____
AP BCS Projections
BCS championship game ? LSU vs. Alabama
Fiesta Bowl ? Oklahoma State vs. Stanford.
Rose Bowl ? Oregon vs. Wisconsin.
Orange Bowl ? Clemson vs. West Virginia.
Sugar Bowl ? Michigan vs. Kansas State.
____
AP Sports Writers Jeff Latzke in Stillwater, Okla., and Paul Newberry in Atlanta contributed to this report.
Associated Presspowerball winning numbers powerball winning numbers uc davis pepper spray uc davis pepper spray usc oregon breaking dawn part 2 breaking dawn part 2
???Practically Radical?by William Taylor. "In an era of hyper-competition and nonstop dislocation, the only way to stand out from the crowd is to stand for something special. Today, the most successful organizations don?t just out-compete their rivals. They redefine the terms of competition by embracing one-of-a-kind ideas in a world filled with me-too thinking."
???Tell to Win?by Peter Guber. "Today everyone, whether they know it or not, is in the emotional transportation business. More and more, success is won by creating compelling stories that have the power to move partners, shareholders, customers and employees to action. Simply put, if you can't tell it, you can't sell it. And if you can't sell it, you won't win."
???Evil Plans?by Hugh MacLeod. ?Everybody needs an evil plan. Everybody needs that crazy, out-there idea that allows them to actually start doing something they love, doing something that matters. Everybody needs an evil plan that gets them the hell out of the rat race, away from lousy bosses, away from boring, dead-end jobs that they hate. Life is short.?
???Enchantment?by?Guy Kawasaki. "Enchantment is the process of delighting people with a product, service, organization or idea. The outcome of enchantment is voluntary and long-lasting support that is mutually beneficial. The greater your goals, the more you'll need to change people's hearts, minds, and actions. If you need to enchant people, you're doing something meaningful. If you're doing something meaningful, you need enchantment."
???The Thank You Economy?by Gary Vaynerchuk. "The power of social media will force business leaders to start thinking like small-town shop owners: allowing the personality, heart and soul of the people who run all levels of the business to show, having authentic conversations and demonstrating real caring. Only the companies that can figure out how to mind their manners in a very old-fashioned way?and do it authentically?are going to have a prayer of competing."
???Reinventing The Wheel?by Chris Zane. "If you can shift your thinking away from merely selling and into building trust instead, even if it costs you a few bucks in profit, you'll begin to see opportunities you never imagined once you understand what it means to 'wow' that customer by giving them more than they expected."
???The Third Screen?by Chuck Martin. "The third screen?the mobile device?changes the rules entirely by creating a completely 'untethered consumer,' free from the constraints of traditional broadcast or online communication, who can search on the move and share information with other customers in real time. This new breed of customer is in charge?they are plugged in, always on, and completely in control in a way that changes the fundamental assumptions of marketing and customer service."
???Little Bets?by Peter Sims. "When trying to navigate amid uncertainty, create something new, or solve open-ended problems, experimenting by making little bets?concrete and low-risk ideas that get iterated and refined over time through constant trial-and-error approach to gradually reach breakthroughs?provides the best way to discover the right direction and reach extraordinary, lasting success."
???The Progress Principle?by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer. "The secret to unleashing the creative potential of people is to enable them to experience a great inner work life, and the single most powerful influence on that inner work life is progress in meaningful work. It starts with giving people something meaningful to accomplish. It requires giving clear goals, autonomy, help and resources?what people need to make real progress in their daily work. And it depends on showing respect for ideas and the people who create them."
???The Big Enough Company?by?Adelaide Lancaster and Amy Abrams. "One size does not fit all. Or even many. Despite the freedom that striking out on your own promises, most of the accepted wisdom on how to build a startup business urges business owners to grow fast, be more profitable, and imitate other successful startups. And while these techniques may work for some, they fail to consider the astounding variety of values and motivations that individuals have for starting a business."
???Uncertainty?by Jonathan Fields. "If you kill the butterflies in your stomach, you'll kill the dream. Most people back away when they get that nervous, uncomfortable feeling. But that feeling signals you're doing something that matters to you. Embrace the feeling. Lean into the discomfort. Try to understand what the feeling is telling you. Train yourself in the alchemy of fear."
???Best Practices Are Stupid?by Stephen Shapiro. "Innovation is not about new products, new processes, new services or even new business models. It is about adaptability. When the pace of change outside of your organization is faster than the pace of change within, you will be out of business. That's why adopting best practices willy-nilly is stupid. You'll always be slower. But if you learn to ask the right questions, in the right way, of the right people, you'll accelerate your innovation efforts."
???The Education of Millionaires?by Michael Ellsberg. "Your real education in how to run a business starts the day you leave school. I spent two years meeting and interviewing college dropouts who went on to become millionaires and even billionaires. My discovery? They didn't have the one thing society said they needed to have in order to become successful: a college degree. What they did have was street smarts."
???Steve Jobs?by Walter Isaacson.?"At a time when the United States is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build creative digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness, imagination and sustained innovation. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology, so he built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering."
???The Lean Startup?by Eric Ries.?"Too many startups begin with an idea for a product that they think people want. They then spend months, sometimes years, perfecting that product without ever showing the product, even in a very rudimentary form, to the prospective customer. When they fail to reach broad uptake from customers, it is often because they never spoke to prospective customers and determined whether or not the product was interesting. When customers ultimately communicate, through their indifference, that they don't care about the idea, the startup fails."![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 2-Dec-2011
Share ]