If Texas required a blowout win over a two-loss Ohio State to stake a claim for the AP’s version of the national title, perhaps Monday’s 24-21 come from behind Fiesta Bowl victory won’t be nearly enough. But poll considerations aside, this was every bit as fantastic a game as either of the other 2 BCS victories during Mack Brown’s tenure, and one that burnishes the clutch reputation of Colt McCoy (41-59, two TD’s, one INT, a career high 414 yards) every bit as much as Vince Young’s Rose Bowl triumphs. With all due respect to John Elway and Bernie Kosar, the Longhorns’ game-winning, 78 play Drive ™ that began with 2:05 remaining was the sort we’ll be talking about for years — especially the blown tackle on Quan Cosby that cost the Buckeyes the game.
Even for the neutrals gathered around the Jackalope’s big screens tonight, there was much to marvel at. Though OSU’s Terrell Pryor struggled with Texas’ pass defense, the freshman was a game breaking threat every time he carried the ball. The Buckeyes controlled the line of scrimmage for much of the night on either side of the ball, and had to figure that holding Texas to minus 9 yards rushing in the first half would’ve earned more than a 3 point advantage at intermission. The Longhorns were ridiculously fortunate not to trail by double digits at halftime (though to be fair, an ill-advised McCoy toss to Cosby in the waning moments of the first half— intercepted by the Buckeyes’ Anderson Russell — cost Texas at least 3 points).
Though tonght’s tilt might ultimately have no bearing on the national championship, Oklahoma and Florida will have to produce a thriller on the biggest stage to top this one. A bigger thriller than this, anyway.
Just another entertaining Monday night bowl game huh? I’ll be interested to see if it’s even enough to make the AP pollsters pick them #2, though there’s certainly no reason to drop them either. But Utah is undefeated and beat the SEC runner-up (which certainly trumps the Big 10 runner-up) decisively. USC blew out the Big 10 champion and also owns a blow-out win over this same (Wells-free) Buckeyes team. Ironically, UT comes out of all this best if Oklahoma wins. You could certainly have a good four team playoff now, but it wouldn’t have been one at the start!
And now that Stoops doesn’t vote and both Brown and Whittingham claim they are going to break the rules and vote for their own teams, can we just do away with the coach’s poll entirely?
This whole season has a strange circular quality to me, strength-of-schedule-wise. Every team’s claim is based on a win over certain other teams, most of whom then turned out to be less impressive over the course of a full season. In particular, ‘Bama made its bones on Georgia. And of course Oklahoma got back to where they did because they blew out what was then thought to be an elite Tech team (and yet, that doesn’t help the Longhorns’ case because they lost to Tech).
So does anybody without a stake in the two teams (or Texas) actually care who wins Thursday?
The answer is: no. I do, however, want to see Florida lose in order to start the mass media hysteria about the SEC being ‘a week conference.’ Sheeplike behavior makes me giggle.
OSU SUCKS!