RedHawks roll past Ohio; Southern Cal hammers UCLA

Published 12:00 am Sunday, November 23, 2003

ATHENS, Ohio (AP) - Ben Roethlisberger threw four touchdown passes against a depleted defense, and No. 18 Miami of Ohio rolled to its 10th straight victory Saturday, 49-31 over Ohio.

The RedHawks (10-1, 7-0 Mid-American) shattered school records for points and yards in a season while extending their longest winning streak since 1975.

Miami had already clinched a spot in the conference's title game by beating No. 22 Bowling Green and defending champion Marshall in the last two games.

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It had no problems against Ohio (2-9, 1-6), which has lost five in a row overall and nine of its last 10 games against Miami.

Roethlisberger completed 19 of 28 for 294 yards in only three quarters. The junior quarterback broke his previous school record with 3,532 yards for the season, and matched his school record of 290 completions in a season.

Roethlisberger, Chad Pennington and Byron Leftwich are the only MAC quarterbacks to throw for 3,000 yards in each of three seasons.

No. 2 USC 47, UCLA 22

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The Southern California Trojans showed they're easily the class of the city - and improved their chances for a national championship.

Matt Leinart threw for 289 yards and two touchdowns, and Mike Williams had 11 catches for 181 yards and two scores Saturday for the second-ranked Trojans in a 47-22 victory over UCLA.

USC (10-1, 6-1 Pac-10), which had slipped to third behind Ohio State in the BCS rankings, got a boost when Michigan beat the Buckeyes 35-21 in a game that finished just before the Trojans took the field.

USC has a bye next weekend before finishing the regular season against Oregon State on Dec. 6 at the Coliseum.

No. 3 LSU 17,

No. 15 Mississippi 14

OXFORD, Miss. (AP) - LSU stayed in the national title picture and spoiled Mississippi's chance to celebrate a championship.

The No. 3 Tigers held Eli Manning and the high-scoring Rebels in check for three quarters, then withstood a fourth quarter rally to earn a 17-14 victory that kept No. 15 Ole Miss from clinching the SEC West on Saturday.

Matt Mauck threw two touchdown passes for LSU (10-1, 6-1), which now controls the SEC West race and can clinch its second trip to the conference title game in three years with a victory over Arkansas.

Ole Miss (8-3, 6-1) had its chances to pull off a second straight fourth-quarter comeback victory.

Jonathan Nichols, who had missed only one of 24 field-goal attempts coming in, was wide right on a 36-yarder that would have tied the game at 17 with 4:15 left. It was Nichols second miss of the day.

Manning was 16-for-36 for 200 yards with a touchdown and an interceptions.

No. 6 Georgia 30,

Kentucky 10

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) – Billy Bennett kicked three field goals to become the Southeastern Conference's all-time scoring leader and David Greene threw for 289 yards to lead No. 6 Georgia past Kentucky 30-10 Saturday.

With the victory, the Bulldogs (9-2, 6-2 SEC) gained at least a share of the East Division title with Florida. Tennessee, which beat Vanderbilt on Saturday, could create a three-way tie by beating Kentucky next week.

Georgia would benefit from that scenario, with the top team in the Bowl Championship Series standings getting a spot in the conference title game. In last week's rankings, the Bulldogs were sixth, a spot ahead of the Volunteers, with the Gators 13th.

Jared Lorenzen completed 21-of-34 for only 137 yards and an interception for the Wildcats (4-7, 1-6). They were held to 212 yards of total offense.