By: Gerry Ahern (Yahoo Sports) –

PASADENA, Calif. – Terrelle Pryor took a knee, then flipped the football to a wide-open official.

What a fitting way for the mercurial Ohio State quarterback to cap the biggest victory of his young career. What a fitting day for his passing to be at its pinnacle, his decision making at its apex.

Pryor threw for a career-best 266 yards and two touchdowns, accounting for 338 yards of total offense in the eighth-ranked Buckeyes’ 26-17 Rose Bowl win over No. 7 Oregon on Friday.

The sophomore completed 23 of 37 attempts on line pharmacies for 266 yards, a few throws with Peyton Manning-like precision.

The virtuoso performance helped oft-maligned Ohio State snap a three-game losing skid in BCS bowl games and put a wrench in the notion that a Big Ten champ was too slow to race with a Pac-10 Porsche.

It also should end the talk that Pryor can’t make plays with his arm or that coach Jim Tressel can’t or shouldn’t trust him to open up the offense.

“This was a game we really thought we needed to come in flinging it around and we did,” Tressel said. “He made good decisions. … Good decisions who to throw to. Good decisions when to throw it away, when to step up and run. He was engaged in the game, talking about the game in between series.”

The balanced, efficient Buckeyes held a stunning 23:14 advantage in time of possession over coach Chip Kelly’s quick-striking but short-on-opportunities Ducks.

“Time of possession, TOP. The only TOP I was worried about was Terrelle Pryor,” cracked Kelly, who lost the battle to sign Pryor two years ago.

OSU ran 89 plays compared to Oregon’s 53. Imagine that. You can control the clock and throw the football.

Pryor credited the advance preparation time he had for the bowl game as helping him take the next step as a passer. During film review, he saw tendencies in the Oregon defense that he and his teammates could capitalize on.

They did.

“I got a lot better in this bowl practice,” Pryor said. “Meeting with Coach Tressel every day. … Studying in the film room. Studying everything. It helped a lot.”

Perhaps Pryor’s prettiest throw of the day came on OSU’s second scoring drive. The athletic 6-foot-6 QB rolled to his right and spotted an…..

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