Oh, it's 2009. Oops. See, real sportswriters have an advantage over bloggers in that bloggers have jobs that don't entail writing and aren't paid. That said, I will not be attempting to review the previous bowls, though I would like to say that going to Miami for the Orange Bowl was pretty awesome.
But now, for the review of the Fiesta Bowl....
Tostitos Fiesta Bowl: Texas-24, Ohio State-21
The Buckeyes have nothing to be ashamed of here, as this is the best bowl that they've played in recent memory. Plus, were it not for an absolutely, shamefully bad "roughing" of Colt McCoy on the first of Texas's 3rd quarter scoring drives, we might have seen a different final score.
If there's a rule in college football that must be amended, it's the 15 yard roughing the kicker penalty. 99 times out of 100 that flag is thrown because the kicker treats a defender's accidental tap as if it were a gunshot wound. If there's a second rule that should be amended, it's the 15 yard roughing the passer penalty.
Quarterbacks need to be protected. To deny that would be, well, stupid. But QBs ARE football players. Getting hit is a part of the friggin' game, just as much as it is for any other player at any other position! When you release a football and are hit 3 seconds later, of course it's roughing! The defender had time to stop. When you're hit half a second later, it's not roughing, because the defender couldn't stop. And, back to the Texas/OSU game, when you're NOT hit in the head, it's NOT illegal contact!
Meanwhile, the Big 12's performance in Bowl games has been shoddy at best. Thus far, the conference's only bowl wins have come against the Big 10 (2 close ones and Kansas's crushing of Minnesota) and the ACC (Nebraska's comeback against Clemson). Since football pundits (including me) spent all season talking about who was better, Big 12 or SEC, I think we've gotten our answer...
As a side note, PTI was talking about the Texas/OSU matchup and felt the need to rip the Orange Bowl. Allow me a moment for rebuttal:
The Orange Bowl featured the champion of a muddled, highly competitive conference who everyone wrote off as crappy (Virginia Tech of the ACC) and an upstart squad who had the best season in school history (Cincinnati of the Big East). Now, we had to put up with fawning and "oooh"s and "ahhh"s over the Fiesta bowl, which featured a 2 loss Ohio State team against a just-shafted out of the title game Texas. Cincinnati had two losses! AND the Big East had a winning bowl record, compared to the 1-6 Big 10! Texas Tech finished in a 3-way tie (with Texas!) for first in the conference, and lost its bowl to an SEC team that was 4th in its conference! Virginia Tech finished in a 4-way tie for first in its conference and beat a Big East team that was first in its conference!
So let's play a little reversal. Let's put Ohio State and Texas Tech against one another. Seems fair. There would be so much hype surrounding these two teams, and if Texas Tech won? Well, then we'd have to put up with news that the Big 12 was superior and that the ACC and Big East certainly didn't deserve to be in such a prestigious bowl.
Am I saying that Cincy or Virginia Tech deserved a BCS berth? No. But if you're going to market the wonder of an Ohio State/Texas matchup, you'd best not bash a Virginia Tech/Cincinnati matchup. Especially since, inevitably, we are going to have to tolerate a spate of "USC is the REAL national champion!" articles in the coming future.
I, for one, look forward to mocking them...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment