AFTER THOUGHTS Beavers take over Southern California Maybe it's time to start taking Oregon State seriously. OSU's 44-38 win over No. 24 UCLA gave the 18th-ranked Beavers their first ever sweep over USC and UCLA and puts them in prime position to return to Pasadena in January. Granted, beating USC and UCLA this year isn't the biggest challenge in the world. One team has a lame duck coach and the other is just lame sometimes. But the Beavers are winning and making teams in the Pac-10 take notice. "We have not gotten any respect at all," said Beavers receiver Chad Johnson, who scored the game's first touchdown. "After this game, I think we will. I think this proves we are for real. What else would we have to do?" Well, a win over Oregon in the Civil War at the end of the season would be a good start. They have winnable games against Washington State and California. A game in Corvallis against Arizona and then the huge season finale against Oregon. "This win keeps us in the race, which is unusual for Oregon State," said Dennis Erickson, who coached the Beavers to their first winning season since 1970 last year -- his first at OSU. "This is the most satisfying win at Oregon State so far for me." Him, and a whole lot of people at Oregon State. OT doesn't pay for Badgers Don't be surprised if Wisconsin doesn't play for overtime at Camp Randall Stadium anytime soon this season. For the third time this season, the Badgers lost in overtime at home. They survived against Cincinnati, but have now lost back-to-back OT games to Northwestern and Purdue. Saturday's loss to Purdue was especially painfully when the Boilermakers' Ashante Woodyard returned a blocked Badger field goal attempt for the game winning score. "Overtime is no friend of ours, I hate overtime," said Wisconsin defensive tackle Wendell Bryant. On the other hand... LSU might be trying for overtime every game. LaBrandon Toefield scored on a 13-yard run on the first possession of overtime to give LSU a 45-38 victory over No. 14 Mississippi State on Saturday night. LSU held Mississippi State on a fourth-and-2 from the 17. Wayne Madkin tried to scramble for a first down, but was stopped well short by Jeremy Lawrence and Teverance Faulk. It was LSU's second overtime win at Tiger Stadium in less than a month. The Tigers beat Tennessee 38-31 in OT on Sept. 30. Quincy who? With Quincy Carter injured, Georgia hoped Cory Phillips wouldn't lose the game for them. Instead, he won it. Phillips, who entered the game with two career completions for 62 yards, threw for 400-yards and four-touchdowns as No. 12 Georgia rallied to beat Kentucky 34-30. "It took some time for (Cory) to relax," defensive tackle Marcus Stroud said. "A lot of people didn't expect Cory to come in and pass like he did. I wasn't surprised because he does it all the time in practice." As good as Phillips was, however, Kentucky's Jaren Lorenzen was better. Playing with a sprained thumb, he completed 39 of 58 passes for a school-record 528 yards and two touchdowns and ran for a 10-yard score in the losing effort. Lorenzen also became the SEC's all-time leading freshman passer with 2,710 yards through eight games -- Carter had 2,484 in 1998 -- and his 528 passing yards were the second-highest single-game total in conference history. "I always knew that Tim (Couch) never threw for over 500 yards, but I didn't know I was even close until the end of the game when our stat guy told me," Lorenzen said. "It's neat that now I kind of have something up on Tim." SATURDAY'S STARS Antwaan Randle El, Indiana: Rushed for a career-high 210 yards and two touchdowns and passed for 263 yards and two more scores as the Hoosiers beat No. 23 Minnesota 51-43. Rudi Johnson, Auburn: rushed 33 times for 249 yards and four touchdowns as Auburn knocked off Louisiana Tech 38-28. Luke McCown, Louisiana Tech: The freshman quarterback had a record-setting day finishing 47-of-65 for 433 yards and four TDs in the 38-28 loss to Auburn. McCown set a Tech record for completions, and also broke the mark for an Auburn opponent. Matt Cannon, Southern Utah: The quarterback ran for 262 yards and three touchdowns as the Thunderbirds beat Idaho State 62-24. Jermaine Bailey, Dayton: Ran for 251 yards and three touchdowns, leading Dayton to a 41-13 victory over Drake. John Turman, Pittsburgh: Threw five touchdown passes as the Panthers beat Boston College 42-26. Antonio Bryant and Kevan Barlow, Pittsburgh: Bryant caught eight passes for 222 yards and two TDs and Barlow, who also scored twice, ran for 209 yards on 25 carries for Pitt. Johnathan Reese, Columbia: Ran for four touchdowns and set a school rushing record with 236 yards in the Lions' 49-21 victory over Dartmouth. Mike Malan, Brown: Rushed 43 times for 234 yards and three touchdowns, threw for one touchdown and caught a touchdown pass in a 56-40 victory over Cornell. Aaron Jones, Utah State: Had a career-best 233 yards receiving for Utah State in a 31-14 victory over Idaho. It was a day the backups moved into the forefront. With Clemson down 17-0 and Heisman hopeful and star QB Woodrow Dantzler on the ground with an ankle injury, redshirt freshman Willie Simmons found his helmet and ran onto the field with the third-ranked Tigers' BCS dreams on his back. His first play, he dropped back to pass and threw a "lame duck" pass as the ball appeared to slip out of hands and was not close to any receiver. OK, so he was a tad jumpy. But he quickly recovered. He threw a 29-yard touchdown pass to Jackie Robinson and then hooked up with Rod Gardner on scoring passes of 20, 43 and 25 yards. His 43-yard TD pass put the Tigers ahead for good at 24-17 with 5:25 left in the third period. All total, he matched a school record with four touchdown passes to rally the fifth-ranked Tigers to 38-24 victory Saturday night. "I've been waiting for this moment all my life," Simmons said. "Nervous? If you're not nervous, something is wrong with you." Nothing was wrong with Simmons once he settled down. He was supposed to challenge Dantzler for the starting job in the spring but an ankle injury sidelined him and Dantzler had a great spring, fall and season and only steps off the field so Simmons can get mop-up duty. That changed Saturday. Clemson coach Tommy Bowden said Dantzler could have returned, but he decided to stick with Simmons. "To set a Clemson record for touchdown passes in a big road game is a credit to him," Bowden said of Simmons. "To come off the bench and play the way he did is something special." The same could be said about Stanford's Chris Lewis. Forced into duty when started Randy Fasani reinjured his knee, Lewis showed a flair for the dramatic for the second time this season. Lewis only entered the game with 55 seconds to play and the redshirt freshman gave the Cardinal an improbable come-from-behind victory over USC with a 20-yard scoring pass to Jamien McCullum as time expired, giving Stanford a 32-30 victory over Southern California on Saturday. It wasn't the first time he's done this. Five weeks ago, he led Stanford to a last second 27-24 win over then-No. 5 Texas when Fasani injured his knee for the first time. "I guess I'm the No. 1 reliever," Lewis laughed. "I think I'll go pitch for the Mets or something." Just win, baby Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer knows enough to know it doesn't matter how it happens. All that matters is the victory. The second-ranked Hokies weren't pretty, but they finally ended the Carrier Dome jinx when they beat the Orangemen 22-14 after losing five straight at Syracuse. They did it not with Heisman favorite Michael Vick and the high powered offense. Instead they did it with with defense, intercepting four passes and making the Orangemen pay for any and every mistake. "I'm not particularly interested in style points," Beamer said. "I'm just glad to get out of here and get that streak over." Calling it a day Here's guessing it probably took Nebraska QB Eric Crouch longer to get ready to play the game than the actual time he spent playing Saturday. Crouch played just one quarter -- 15 minutes -- as the Huskers jumped out to a 38-0 first quarter lead in Saturday's 59-0 win over Baylor, paving the way for backup Jamaal Lord to dust off the helmet and get his uniform dirty finally. "That was fun," said Lord, who ran for 37 yards and TD and completed 3 of 6 passes. "It's always fun to play whether you play one series, a whole game or just one play." Crouch, meanwhile, saw a golden opportunity to pad his stats for a run at the Heisman slide by, but he didn't sound too upset. "I'm not too worried about statistics," Crouch said. "If I take my team to the national championship, I'm doing everything I can." NUMBERS GAME Virginia Military Institute, which this week asked Southern Conference officials to show mercy for its football program, ended a 38-game losing streak to Division I-AA foes with a 40-7 victory over Charleston Southern. The Keydets ended a 16-game losing streak and posted their first victory against a Division I-AA foe since 1996. Army snapped the nation's longest losing streak at 10 games, beating Tulane 21-17 on Joe Gerena's 18-yard TD pass to Clint Dodson with 40 seconds left. With a 32-30 loss to Stanford, Southern California has lost its first four conference games for the first time in school history. Ohio University posted a 52-3 victory over Central Michigan to snap a 20-year winless streak against the Chippewas. Ohio had not beaten the Chippewas since 1980, going 0-13-1 over the past two decades. Southern Utah quarterback Matt Cannon broke the NCAA Division I-AA record for career rushing yards by a quarterback in a 62-24 win over Idaho State. Cannon has 4,146 yards with four games remaining. The previous record was 3,957 yards set by Western Kentucky's Willie Taggart. Drew Brees became the Big Ten's career passing leader and the Boilermakers won in Madison for the first time since 1988 Brees completed 21 of 43 passes for 274 yards and two touchdowns. Brees has 10,567 career passing yards, 106 more than Chuck Long had at Iowa from 1981-85. Brown piled up an Ivy League record 690 yards of offense in a 56-40 victory over Cornell. Stephen Campbell of Brown caught 12 passes for 192 yards and two touchdowns to become the Ivy League's career receptions leader with 253, eclipsing the mark of 251 by Brown's Sean Morey. Joe Paterno passed Pop Warner for sole possession of second place on the major college career victory list as Penn State beat Illinois 39-25. Paterno has 320 victories, trailing Bear Bryant's 323. Westminster beat Grove City 23-0 and for at least one week stopped Wolverines star R.J. Bowers from breaking the NCAA All Division career rushing record. Bowers needed 149 yards to break Brian Shay's career record of 6,958 set in 1998 at Emporia State (Kan.). Westminster held Bowers to just 61 yards on 23 carries.