Saturday's action was not as results-oriented as a certain president-elect might like to see it but, for Oregon State, it sure was a kick.
There won't be an eight-team playoff at season's end, yet a soon-to-be 82-year-old coach, coming off hip replacement surgery, will likely be leading Penn State to the Rose Bowl.
And because a sophomore kicker found redemption with a game-winning field goal, the Beavers of Corvallis are one home victory over Oregon next Saturday from clinching their first Rose Bowl bid in 44 years.
And the team Oregon State may displace in Pasadena, USC, which had the weekend off, may move up in the polls and keep its faint national title hopes alive thanks to a wipeout Oklahoma win over previously unbeaten Texas Tech that could leave the Big 12 South with three 11-1 teams.
Could anything be clearer?
And fans went nuts in Salt Lake City after Utah, which won't play in the national title game, secured a 12-0 regular season and clinched its second major bowl bid in four years with a win against arch-angel-rival Brigham Young.
And Boise State, with a win over Nevada in Reno, is one victory from a 12-0 season that won't earn it a national title bid, either.
And there was a snowball fight in South Bend.
Another day in a fabulously fractured sport rendered at least five story lines that were somehow connected, or oddly interwoven, or at least tangentially tied.
In Norman, the Bowl Championship Series national title race got messier and more clearly defined.
Oklahoma handed Texas Tech a first loss so ugly it may require plastic surgery.
The Sooners' 65-21 Lubbock-kicking was so thorough it probably knocked Texas Tech completely out of the national title picture.
What happens now?
If Oklahoma, Texas and Texas Tech win next week, there will be a three-way tie at 11-1 in the Big 12 South. The highest-rated team in the BCS standings will win the bid to play Missouri in the conference title game.
If that team is Oklahoma, which is the betting favorite, Texas will holler foul only because it defeated Oklahoma earlier this season in Dallas.
How wrong is that?
But if Texas holds tight, and Florida State upsets Florida next week, and then Florida routs No. 1 Alabama in the Southeastern Conference title game, Texas may get a rematch against Oklahoma in the national title game.
Are you still with me?
