Taking Down The Field Goal Posts: Fight On To Glendale

• USC 44, Notre Dame 24. I hate to be the one to point it out, but twice, Notre Dame has played Top 10 teams, and twice, they have lost by 20 or more. Obviously, this will not stop a BCS bowl game from happily taking them (supposedly, the Sugar Bowl is in love with the Irish), so there's not really a downside for Notre Dame. If they won, they were probably playing in a BCS game that wasn't the national title game, and now that they've lost, they'll be doing exactly the same thing.

USC, on the other hand, probably just stamped their ticket for the BCS Championship game against Ohio State. It was the Dwayne Jarrett Show last night, as he brought down 7 catches for 132 yards, including a nasty one-hander on the sidelines that only a few people on the planet can make. Provided they don't trip up against UCLA (and weird things can happen in such a game), it's USC vs. Ohio State on January 8th.

• South Florida 24, West Virginia 19. West Virginia's leading rusher was a fellow named Darius Reynaud, a fine receiver, but if West Virginia's leading rusher isn't named Pat White or Steve Slaton... that's probably not a good sign for West Virginia. Obviously, that will put to bed any chance WVU had at an at-large BCS berth.

• Wake Forest 38, Maryland 24. At 10-2, Wake Forest will be playing Georgia Tech (who lost to Georgia) next week with the ACC title and a spot in the BCS on the line. If you'd have told me before the season started that that was going to happen, I'd have suggested dropping a "T" between the "W" and the "F" on Wake's helmets, and adding a question mark at the end. Kenneth Moore ran for 165 yards, and QB Riley Skinner was 10-of-13 passing for 125 yards and a touchdown.