Mike Sorensen: Big schools are now BCS busters

So much for the BCS busters.

Usually the term is applied to the non-BCS schools like Utah, Boise State and Hawaii that bust the BCS and qualify for the big BCS bowl games.

Saturday the BCS busters were Florida State and Oregon, which busted the hopes of our local teams, BYU and Utah, to qualify for BCS bowls this season.

There might be some local fans out there who are still holding out hope that their beloved teams can still manage to qualify for BCS games. While it's possible for a non-BCS school to get into a BCS game with a single loss, it's unlikely. In fact, I'd say extremely unlikely.

For one thing, it's never happened before. Every previous BCS-buster has gone undefeated in the regular season.

For another, there's Boise State. The Broncos appear to be on their way to an undefeated season with a couple of their hardest games already out of the way. If Boise stays unbeaten, there's no way a one-loss team is going to join them or leap-frog them for a BCS berth. The Broncos are already up to No. 8 in the rankings.

Then there's TCU and Houston. The Utes and Cougars each have a chance to knock TCU out of BCS consideration. But Houston is already ranked No. 17 and has a win over No. 5 Oklahoma State to its credit. If the Cougars from Texas can get by Texas Tech this week and Mississippi State two weeks later, they'll only have to get through the Conference USA schedule.

OUCH: Some folks are saying Saturday's outcomes set the Mountain West Conference back several years.

I don't know about that, but it was an awful day for the MWC.

Not only did BYU and Utah lose big games on the national stage and look lousy in the process, but their little brothers didn't do much better.

San Diego State lost by 14 to Idaho, which was picked for the bottom of the WAC this year. Wyoming lost to Colorado, as expected, but didn't show much in a 24-0 loss. At least UNLV defeated its WAC opponent, Hawaii, but the Rebels needed a touchdown with 36 seconds left to win 34-33, at home.

Even TCU didn't look that great in beating an FCS school, Texas State, leading just 35-21 before scoring three times in the fourth quarter.

Only Colorado State, which narrowly avoided an embarrassing loss to Weber State the week before, looked pretty good in its non-league game, beating Nevada 35-20, with Nevada scoring twice in the final three minutes to make it look respectable.

STEPPING UP: With the MWC flaming out Saturday, at least some of the other non-BCS league plcked up the slack.

Conference USA's Southern Miss came back to beat Virginia of the ACC 37-34, the MAC's Northern Illinois knocked off Purdue 28-21 of the Big Ten and the Sun Belt's Middle Tennessee State beat Maryland of the ACC 32-31.

AGGIES SHINE: How about those Aggies from Logan, who gave the big-program Aggies from Texas a pretty good game in a 38-30 loss? It was kind of ironic, however, that USU's offense rolled up 521 yards, while Gary Andersen's defense allowed 573 total yards.

Utah State should pick up its first victory this week against Southern Utah and has three very winnable games in October against New Mexico State, Nevada and Louisiana Tech. And now, even that Oct. 2 meeting against BYU doesn't look quite so daunting.

SARK TURNS IT AROUND: It didn't take Steve Sarkisian long to turn the Washington program (0-12 last year) around. Who would have believed his Huskies would knock off the mighty Trojans of USC, where Sarkisian used to coach, in the third game of his first season?

Although the Huskies aren't going to contend for a national title, or even a Pac-10 title, they could end up in a bowl for the first time in seven years. How about Sarkisian against his old team in the Las Vegas Bowl?

BOWL PROJECTIONS: Here are my very early bowl projections for local teams — BYU vs. Washington in Las Vegas Bowl; Utah vs. Stanford in the Poinsettia Bowl; Utah State vs. Colorado State in the New Mexico Bowl.

e-mail: sor@desnews.com