Five Ways To View the Fiesta Bowl Outcome
6 Jan
Unlike the previous three losses against major non-conference opponents, the Ohio State Buckeyes weren’t blown out—much to the surprise of many. Actually, they played so well that it looked as if maybe they’d pull off an unthinkable victory against Texas. But what does that mean? Here are five ways you could look at the Fiesta Bowl:
1) It Proves OSU Can’t Beat Anybody Outside the Big Ten
This is another loss for Ohio State and for the Big Ten on a major stage. The conference’s one victory comes from Iowa, a team that shouldn’t have been in a January bowl game, beating South Carolina…a team that really shouldn’t have been in a January bowl game. So, after Penn State’s embarrassing Rose Bowl showing, the Big Ten’s reputation was up to OSU. In addition to the last two title games, which OSU stunk up, the Buckeyes were definitely the team with more to prove and with more of a desire to win. They were lucky to even be in a BCS bowl, whereas Texas felt they were in the incorrect BCS bowl game. OSU has spent two years hearing about how overrated they are, how they don’t play anybody except Michigan and how bad the Big Ten is…and they were sick of it. They had seniors on the team who had come back to the school to win a game like this and future draft picks who had an inkling that this would be their last game for OSU—all players who lived through Florida, LSU, USC and PSU. Add the conference’s awful bowl game showing to the mix, and that was just one more motivating factor. Even Texas head coach Mack Brown worried about a possible upset because he knew OSU was the hungrier team.
And even with all that being the case, they still couldn’t come up with a win? As close as the game ultimately was and as well as OSU played, a loss is still a loss. The list of teams they couldn’t beat when their reputation was on the line just keeps getting longer and longer, and you wonder if they will ever make the statement they need to. In other words, is this losing streak against topnotch non-conference teams going to come to an end? Unfortunately for the Buckeyes and their fans, a lot of people are going to look at this loss to Texas and take that as confirmation that OSU just does not belong in the same category as teams like Texas, USC and Florida. When everything is on the line and you don’t pull out a victory (and multiple times), maybe that simply means you’re just not capable of doing so.
McCoy Hands OSU Another Loss
2) You Think OSU Didn’t Prove Their Point? Think Again!
On the flip side, you could look at this close loss and the way OSU played as a sign that you need to respect the Buckeyes. Nobody except maybe the Buckeye nation expected OSU to come out and do what they did. And until the last 30 seconds or so of the game, it really did look like OSU would beat Texas—a team that came into the Fiesta Bowl believing they belonged in the BCS title game.
When you think about the task OSU was assigned in getting this bowl matchup, it really was quite unfair. If you’re OSU, you’re facing a Heisman candidate quarterback and a National Championship-caliber team when you don’t have a Heisman candidate as your quarterback and you didn’t even win your conference. At best, you “tied” for your conference crown and at worst, you lost to its champion. You played weaker teams all season long, getting blown out by the best team you faced—a USC team that, during the regular season, did not look as good as Texas did. Worse yet, you’re splitting time between a freshman quarterback and a kid who apparently has learned everything but how to win big games—despite being at OSU for…ehhhh…ver. So, you spend all this time hearing about this high-powered offense and incredible speed, things no one believes your team has.
But OSU showed everybody what they did have—pretty good defense, tricks up their sleeves and the ability to make great plays on the ground with a running back (just shocking since, apparently, RB’s are going out of style in favor of running quarterbacks). A lot of people think the style of football and type of players in the Big Ten just aren’t good enough to win non-conference games against powerhouse opponents. But that “Big Ten style” had Texas scrambling up until the very end, and it worked well enough to give us a rare treat—a good BCS bowl game. It became the kind of game that you suspected would come down to someone making a mistake, and it did. OSU did nearly everything right on defense…except leave Quan “Touchdown” Cosby open in the final seconds of the fourth quarter. Despite that pretty costly mistake, they avoided the suspected BCS blowout by playing the kind of football topnotch teams play.
OSU shows Texas a real defense
3) Texas Never Belonged In the BCS Title Game
Even if you concede that OSU played a great game, you also need to recognize that Texas did not. Put very simply, they did not go out and play Texas football. Colt “Completion” McCoy didn’t really run the ball until the second half and didn’t throw that many deep balls. Their offense lacked that explosive quality it had in Big 12 games, and their so-called second-ranked rush defense didn’t keep OSU from gaining more yards on the ground than they did. And you wonder whether that was playing it safe out of respect for OSU’s defense, disrespecting OSU to the point of expecting watered-down play to win the day or just not caring about being in the Fiesta Bowl. In the first half, there were enough incomplete passes for you to sit up and take note. And, honestly, I looked at both teams just trading field goals in the first half and wondered if I was watching an NFL game instead of the more action-packed college football. As great as OSU’s defense was, I think everybody knows that Texas could easily have put up more than 24 points on it.
I wrote a while back that Texas needed to blow OSU out in order to back up the whining about the latest BCS snafu. Texas had something to prove. Well, they didn’t do it. USC looked more like a title contender in one half of the Rose Bowl than Texas did during the entire Fiesta Bowl. More people probably will vote Utah as the best team or two in the nation than they will Texas, and maybe they should. As I mentioned in that article, I know how disappointment can bite you in bowl season. But you can’t realistically almost lose to one of the most disrespected teams in a BCS conference and then claim after the victory that no other team can beat you, that you’re the best team in the nation and that you belonged in the title game. Even if Texas played down out of disrespect, real champions play to win every time. Maybe this is why Tim “Superman” Tebow and Sam “Sixty Points” Bradford have a Heisman trophy and McCoy doesn’t.
4) Texas Deserves To Play For the Title
You could argue that their ability to come from behind and win a BCS bowl game does demonstrate that no one can beat them right now. I think OSU and Texas Tech would beg to differ, and Oklahoma probably would, too. But to Texas and their fanbase, it obviously doesn’t matter that the score was 24-21 instead of 64-21. What matters is Texas was not playing especially well in the first half, even throwing an interception at the end of the half, and made the necessary adjustments when it looked like they might lose. Besides, didn’t I say that OSU played well? Maybe Texas beat a good team that fought harder to win. And Texas engineered the perfect game-winning drive. McCoy didn’t rush the drive; he just focused on getting first downs. In the process, Texas drained enough time off the clock on their drive before the defense came up with a sack on OSU’s final drive, making sure OSU couldn’t come back (perhaps learning from the loss to Texas Tech). No, the only Fiesta Bowl comeback that mattered would ultimately belong to the Longhorns. Now that’s how you win games.
5) This Is Another Example of Why We Need a Playoff
Let the argument begin about who should be voted no. 1, especially after the title game is over. People are already talking about how Utah never had a chance to prove they’re no. 1 or how their 13-0 record coupled with a win over Alabama shows that they can beat any team in the nation. When USC killed PSU, their head coach Pete Carroll made the same unproven statement that Mack Brown did about no team being able to beat his…and a lot of people agree with him. Texas thinks the Fiesta Bowl made their case for them, and whichever team wins the title game will believe that’s that. The idea that only teams from BCS conferences could be no. 1 or that there are about 4-5 teams virtually impossible to deem the sole best in the nation—even after a playoff—isn’t acceptable to most people. Many of us want it “settled” entirely on the field, regardless of the fact that all the teams in consideration could probably play each other multiple times and get different results. Nevermind that this playoff thing isn’t going to happen any time soon. Tons of us are still going to cry and whine about needing a playoff system in college football. If OSU had beaten Texas, that would have knocked Texas out of the picture without question. Instead, questions will linger about whether Texas, USC and Utah should have gotten the chance to be National Champions.
Is Utah No. 1?
My take on the Fiesta Bowl is this:
OSU’s performance should be good enough to earn back the majority of the respect they’ve lost these past two years, despite the fact that Texas didn’t play as well as they should have. It became one of those games that someone had to lose, and that just happened to be the Buckeyes. I’m pretty sure this game doesn’t do the Buckeyes any good, though, and I’m not even sure a win would have gotten their respect back.
Aside from showing that OSU is not totally hopeless against great teams, I don’t think these bowl games say much about the teams in them or the need for a playoff system. Bowl games are basically an entirely different season than the regular season, and sometimes they say more about what to expect from a team the following season (East Carolina, Tulsa and Utah are great examples, considering their 2007 season bowl games. I suspect Ole Miss, LSU and Notre Dame will be teams to watch next season based on their bowl performances). Just look at all the upsets that have happened in these bowl games. Sorry, but I watched Utah and OSU play during the regular season on more than one occasion…and neither of these teams would have come close to beating Alabama or Texas between September and December. But given a month or so to prepare for just one team and hearing you don’t stand a chance, anything can happen. This is why Utah and OSU had their best games of the season in January.
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