Buckeyes to go Fiesta Bowling, again

As announced this evening, your Ohio State Buckeyes will be heading to Glendale for something like the 23rd time, taking on the Texas Longhorns in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl on January 5th.

(Just an aside: I still hate non-January 1st bowl games. It just doesn’t feel right)

This is a dangerous game. A pissed-off Texas team. A young OSU QB. A huge monkey on OSU’s back of not winning a big game.

The question for Texas is: which team shows up? A dejected, “we should be in the MNC game” Texas? A post-Heisman Colt McCoy, primed to suffer the Heisman Hangover? A peeved Texas looking to make a statement? And which Ohio State team shows up? How will Terrelle Pryor benefit from the time off? What about Beanie? A full rested, mostly-healthy Beanie should scare the pants of Mack Brown.

If any team should fear a QB like Terrelle Pryor, it would be the Texas Longhorns. After watching Vince Young for three years, they know what they’re in for.

We’ll look at this match-up a little more in the coming weeks, but we’d love to hear your initial reactions. I’m not sure how I feel about playing in a BCS game this year. Both the Monkey and I were hoping for a match-up with an SEC team, preferably the imminently beatable Georgia Bulldogs in the Capitol One Bowl. We won’t look the gift horse in the mouth, but this match-up with arguably the best team in the country certainly isn’t doing us any favors.

Comments

  1. I think this is the best possible bowl scenario.

    Capital One vs. Georgia would have been a winnable game vs. an SEC opponent; however, it would not have had the glitz and glamour of a BCS game and would not really have counted as a big game win.

    I wanted the Bucks to get an elite opponent, b/c OSU has nothing to lose right now. Their reputation and that of the Big Ten is at an all-time low. The Bucks are probably gonna get spanked by USC again next year, so this is a chance to try again to restore some respectability. I wanted one of the “elite” – Florida, Alabama, USC, Texas, or Oklahoma.

    And the BEST part is, of those five, Texas has a case that they are #1, but I also think they’re one of the teams OSU had a chance to beat (along with Alabama). No chance against the other three.

    So, while I’m not expecting an OSU win, I am feeling optimistic and I think it’s the best possible scenario. Ask me again if they get trounced.

  2. Yeah I’m not liking it. It’s lose-lose for Buckeye fans.

    If OSU loses, it’s the third loss in a row to a decent team, which will all but cement the reputation for years and years to come (no matter what level of success they have).

    If OSU wins, all it does is confirm for the pollsters that “they had it right” and Oklahoma was most deserving of the title shot. OSU’s victory would be minimized.

    IMO, OSU would get more love from the CFB-universe if they beat an SEC team in a Jan 1 bowl than if they beat a Texas team in the Fiesta. The reason is that the nation is sympathetic towards Texas, and would likely rationalize any outcome in some way that is more favorable to Texas.

    Not to mention that now all the Big 10 teams playing on Jan 1 will be underdogs, because they’ll “move up” one notch each due to OSU being taken in the BCS.

    But the talking heads won’t see it that way, no matter what happens to OSU, it’s primed to be another bad year for the Big 10, and they’ll make sure everyone knows it’s not because they were playing in games they had no business of playing in, but rather only that they stink.

  3. Wow. Welcome to “Men of the Scarlet and Gray Eeyores”. How about we forget what “the talking heads” think and just focus on the hand we’ve been dealt? The glass-is-half-full version says the Buckeyes are going to a 7th BCS bowl and are taking on a team that should be going to the National Title game. It’s a fantastic opportunity for the program, and another reason that the 2009 recruits made the right choice to come to Ohio State.

    GO BUCKS!!!! BEAT THE LONGHORNS!!!!

  4. sportsMonkey, I’ve got to disagree with you on this one. I love this bowl pairing. We get a high-profile opponent in what I see as a win-win situation. If we beat Texas, that’s a real plus for OSU. If we get beat, well hell, a lot of folks think Texas should have been in MNC and has one helluva ballclub. If we would have played Georgia, I see that as a lose-lose game; we would have either beaten a 3-loss team (national prspective-big deal) or gotten beaten by a 3-loss team (national perspective-OSU really sucks).

    I would have rather had a chance to kick some SEC ass, but I see the Texas matchup as a good thing. IMHO, of course.

  5. Don’t get me wrong, fellas. I’m still thinking the Texas game is definitely winnable. The two teams match up fairly well. It’s definitely a much more exciting game than the Capital One would have been.

    I was just really pulling for an SEC opponent. I desperately wanted this class of seniors to have an opportunity to get out from underneath the SEC’s shadow.

    Unfortunately, they’ll have that unfinished business hanging over their heads for the remainder of their careers.

    But perhaps it’ll be easier to deal with knowing they had a win over a Texas team that many thought was the #1 team in the country. 🙂

  6. “I was just really pulling for an SEC opponent.”

    I was, too. Unfortunately, that’s out of our control. There will be another day for that task, and I hope that day comes when Pryor is at his peak. Your 2nd comment is much more positive! 🙂

  7. Men, we seem to forget that the Big 12 is getting MUCH more press than the SEC this year, and with good reason. You all know how fickle the sportswriters and talking heads are, just look at the polls the first 4 weeks of every season, and you see an East Carolina and South FL in the top 10.
    So, let’s beat up on the conference that everyone is writing and talking about! Go Bucks!

  8. If we can control the ball , keep Colt and his Offense on the sideline……….

    We can do this , thier Defense is very suseptable to the pass ( ranked 229th in pass defense). That should be a red flag as to what to exploit. And in turn , that will and have to open things up for the Beanie and Pryor 100k marathon.(LOL)

    Texas’ offense cannot run up 50 if they are on the sideline.

    Go Bucks!!!!!

  9. i’m just jealous that my old man gets to go see the game. i was there in columbus when we almost beat the ‘inVincible’ vince young (damn TE…) and i still lament that game with my friends to this day.

    if we could come as close as 25-22 against a texas team that went on to win the mNC, while playing two quarterbacks, i have faith that we will have a chance against this texas team.

    ps. i think all buckeye fans should be pulling for colt to win the heisman. not only to keep archie at his distinctive position as the only two time winner, but also for the ‘heisman hangover’ affect. anyone remember florida vs michigan after tim ‘Jesus’ tebow won?

  10. lancelott, we do have to remember that horrid hangover once struck our beloved troy smith a year prior.

    im with you though. i think this game is a great match up not only do we get a chance to settle the score with texas, but we also have a great opportunity to redeem ourselves on the national stage. other people have already said it, but this texas team is every bit deserving of playing in the national championship game as OU and FL. Instead, what do they get? They get an OSU team that everyone has ridden off as a sucker. This is our time to step up and prove ourselves, and I am gaining confidence that this team actually can do this! Go Bucks!

  11. lancelott, if you ever refer to Hamby and his traitorous hands again, we shall be forced to ban you from MotSaG forever.

    #@!%$# Ryan Hamby!!

  12. i feel you sports monkey. i dont know if i have ever had such a hard time forgiving a player for dropping a pass. it just so happens that catch was the difference between a national championship game and no nat. champ. game.

  13. How about I refer to him as ‘he who shall not be named’?

    I do feel your pain, I don’t know if I will ever recover from that game…

    On to the next game, does anyone know if our frosh linemen will be healthy for the game?

  14. Lancelott: HWSNBN is in jail in Toledo. #A529720

  15. First of all, have any of you ever played college football? Heck, have any of you even gone to college? (and no, a bar off campus doesn’t count.)
    Hamby dropped a ball. Big freaken deal! Do any of you remember how many times he caught a crucial pass or threw a critical block in his career at OSU? All while going to school, working out, studying game film, traveling across the country and getting his body beat up just so a bunch of us fat, lazy, out-of-shape white guys have something to watch in the fall? Don’t ever call a loyal Buckeye a traitor! Traitors are freaks like Woodson and Howard, who grew up in Ohio and stabbed us in the back by going to that hell-hole up north.
    Whew. Sorry about the rant.
    Anyway, I think this game comes down to one simple thing: Can OSU run the ball.
    If Beanie can move the chains, Pryor make some runs and hit just a couple of deep throws, we should beat Texas.

  16. buckeyebrowny919 says

    january 5th, arizona, Section 439 row 10..anyone else?

  17. @painterlad – I think I called his hands “traitorous.” 🙂

    And, btw, as it’s already been pointed out, OSU lost a shot at the title b/c of that missed catch. He had two chances to get it – once when it hit him perfectly in the hands, and again when he tipped it to himself in knee-knocking choke-ification.

    Oh, and while we’re remembering famous Buckeye chokes, let’s give an honorable mention to Stanley Jackson in the 1997 OSU/UM game. In a moment of panic, he throws the ball directly to a UM lineman five feet in front of him, who runs it in for the victory-securing TD. Talk about a single boneheaded play changing history. Because of Stanley Jackson’s error, UM won that game, their Rose Bowl required appearance prevented them from playing Nebraska, and CFB had had enough of the fact that #1 and #2 never played each other. The following year, the BCS was formed as a result.

  18. sportsmonkey,
    an entire game does not come down one single play. Some plays are more crucial than others, but Hamby didn’t cause the OSU offense to walk away with three field goals when they started three drives inside the Texas 30.
    Archie Griffin fumbled on his first carry. It’s a good thing that Woody didn’t consider #45 hands “traitorous.”

  19. If you are going to blame Hamby, you have to sort of blame Troy Smith as well. We had to play Justin Zwick against Texas, mostly.

    That said, the Hamby drop is still hard to watch.

  20. “If Beanie can move the chains, Pryor make some runs and hit just a couple of deep throws, we should beat Texas.”

    Texas 37, OSU 20

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