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The Oregon Ducks are certainly the favorite for Thursday's Fiesta Bowl game against the Kansas State Wildcats in Glendale, Arizona and very few expect K-State to be able to pull the upset. The media and college football analysts have almost unanimously selected Oregon to pull out the win.
Of the seven writers at CBS Sports making selections, only Jerry Hinnen selected the Wildcats, while the other six each picked Oregon to win. It wasn't much different at Sports Illustrated, where Stewart Mandel picked Oregon to win by double-digits:
"Stanford, the lone team to slow down Kenjon Barner and the Ducks this season, did so with a 3-4 defense. Teams with a 4-3 scheme that had success against Chip Kelly in the past typically had dominant interior linemen. K-State has great ends (Meshak Williams and Adam Davis) and a great player behind them (linebacker Arthur Brown), but it does not fit the defensive formula for stopping Oregon."
One of the only believers in the 11-1 Wildcats is Will Harris of ESPN, who picked a 31-30 upset for K-State although he was only willing to wager six confidence points on the game in ESPN's College Bowl Mania game.
Both the Ducks and Wildcats finished 11-1 in 2012, although neither advanced to a conference championship game. The Big 12 doesn't currently have one and Stanford earned the nod in the Pac-12 North over Oregon.