Don’t soft-petal it

Four teams . . . three Pacific 10 Conference championship contenders . . . two games . . . one more Saturday scramble of college football around Los Angeles. So goes the countdown in the annual Run for the Roses -- a berth in the Jan. 1 Rose Bowl game at stake. Going into today’s game at the Coliseum, USC and California each has one conference loss, as does Oregon State, which plays UCLA this afternoon in Pasadena. Cal and Oregon State, who still must play each other, control their own destiny in determining the Pac-10’s Rose Bowl participant. USC’s Trojans could use an assist from the crosstown-rival Bruins because they need Oregon State to lose at least one more game.