(Written by kencraw)

Well the Thanksgiving weekend didn’t do any favors to Cal fans hoping for a good bowl. Although only two of the four criteria that would prevent the Bears from going to a bowl were even “in play” neither of them went the way of the Bears. Oregon’s loss to UCLA both hurt the likelihood that two teams make it to the BCS by effectively eliminating Oregon from consideration and ensured that UCLA would be bowl eligible since they now have 6 wins. It also means that UCLA still has a shot at 7 wins, which means they could still go to a higher bowl than the Bears, even if the Bears beat Stanford.

In fact, the only thing that went the Bears way was USC beating ASU as that ensured that both ASU and USC are still candidates for BCS bowls. The likely scenario at this point, assuming they both win their last game, is USC in the Rose and ASU in the Fiesta, particularly if Missouri beats Oklahoma in the Big-12 championship game giving the Fiesta bowl two at-large spots since Missouri will go to the BCS championship game.

What this all means is that if the Bears collapse continues in the Big Game, the Bears bowl fate rests in the hands of the Arizona State Sun Devils. If they can beat Arizona, they’ll ensure Cal goes to a bowl by keeping Arizona from bowl eligibility. They’ll also bump the Bears up to either the Las Vegas Bowl or the Emerald “San Francisco Nut” Bowl by winning convincingly enough to ensure a Fiesta Bowl birth for themselves (otherwise it is the Armed Services Bowl in Forth Worth-“less”, TX for the Bears).

But lets not forget that all the Bears need to do is beat Stanford to go to a bowl. If the Bears win, the outcome of the Arizona-Arizona State game is only about positioning within the bowl line-up. Additionally, again assuming the Bears win, the outcome of the USC-UCLA game matters as well for positioning as a UCLA loss would mean the Bears go to a higher bowl than UCLA.

So those are your rooting orders for next Saturday:

1. Root for Cal over Stanford (duh)
2. Root for ASU over Arizona
3. Root for USC over UCLA (I know it’s hard, but try anyway)