PHILADELPHIA, 24 November 2004 — Southern California vs. Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl appears to be three victories away — two by USC and one by the Sooners.

USC and Oklahoma held the top two spots in the Bowl Championship Series standings on Monday, leaving little doubt that they are in control of the national title race.

Unbeaten Auburn is stuck in third place behind the first-place Trojans and second-place Sooners.

The Tigers look as if they’ll be the team left out of the Orange Bowl no matter how they do in the Southeastern Conference championship game on Dec. 4 against Tennessee.

USC finishes the season against Notre Dame on Saturday and UCLA on Dec. 4.

“For us, it’s a playoff run,” USC coach Pete Carroll said. The Sooners still have to play the Big 12 title game against either Iowa State or Colorado. Only an unexpected loss or a dramatic shift in the polls, where USC is a solid No. 1 and Oklahoma holds a slight advantage over Auburn for second, could derail a Trojans-Sooners match-up.

Not only did Oklahoma, with a BCS grade of .9642, slightly increase its lead over Auburn (.9356) from last week to .0286, but the Sooners also made a big gain on USC.

The Trojans’ .9789 grade is their lowest of the season. Their lead on Oklahoma is down to .0147. USC was idle last week while Oklahoma was shutting out Baylor 35-0 on Saturday. Auburn trailed at the half before beating Alabama 21-13.

California (.8504) is in fourth place, Texas (.8301) fifth and Utah (.8172) sixth.

The Utes (11-0) finished their season on Saturday with a 52-21 win over Mountain West Conference rival BYU, all but ensuring themselves of being the first team from a non-BCS conference to play in a BCS game.

Teams from outside the BCS conferences need to finish in the top six of the final BCS standings to guarantee a spot in one of the four big-money bowl games.

Boise State is seventh, keeping alive the possibility that the BCS could have two mid-major teams in it this season. The unbeaten Broncos (10-0) of the Western Athletic Conference have a grade of .639 and one game left against Nevada.