Buckeye Blogger Network
MAACO Las Vegas Bowl December 22, 3:30pm EST, ESPN television
Trying to make a return to their 90’s self, the Washington Huskies find themselves at 7-5 and in Las Vegas to face Boise State and (maybe) head coach Chris Peterson (10-2). After being lured away from USC where he occupied the offensive coordinator post under Pete Carroll, Huskie head coach Steve Sarkisian is doing his best to bring the program back. Since taking the job inheriting a team coming off an 0-12 season in 2008, “Sark” has led Washington to marks of 5-7, 6-6, 7-6 and this season’s 7-5. The good news in Seattle is that it is a relatively young team led by quarterback Keith Price and sophomores Bishop Sankey at running back, wide receiver Kasen Williams and Austin Seferian-Jenkins at tight end. Though they were crushed (literally) by Oregon, USC and Arizona, the Huskies were one of two teams (the other is undefeated Notre Dame) to get a win over PAC-12 conference champion Stanford in 2012. Unfortunately they fell in overtime to Washington State in the highly anticipated yearly grudge match known simply as “The Apple Cup”.
It’s a pretty safe bet that the undefeated Ohio State Buckeyes would have their way with the 2012 Washington Huskies. A defense that surrendered over 50 points on multiple occasions would be Swiss cheese for the Buckeye offense. Head to head, the Buckeyes are 8-3 all-time against Washington. Their last meeting was a 33-14 Buckeye win in 2007 at Huskie Stadium. The last time they met in Ohio Stadium was August 30th, 2003 in the season opener. The Buckeyes won that night as well by a final of 28-9. This was the first home game after the 2002 National Championship game and the last game that Maurice Clarrett was still officially a member of the Ohio State football program.
Southern Idaho State enters the game at 10-2 with absolutely no really spectacular wins under their belt, unless you subscribe to the Notre Dame school of thought that a hard fought battle with BYU is something to brag about. In that case, Boise was “champion-like” in their 7-6 triumph over the Mormons. Of course, we all watched on opening weekend when Boise fell in East Lansing to Michigan State 17-13. They were also beaten by San Diego State. The Broncos are led offensively by running back DJ Harper who finished with 1065 yards and 15 touchdowns.
I don’t think the Buckeyes would have much of a problem with the 2012 Boise State Broncos. Though the Buckeyes have never met the Broncos head to head on the field, former head coach Jim Tressel won his third national championship at Youngstown State with a 28-14 win over Boise State in 1994. For you trivia buffs, that playoff run for the Penguins started with a home victory in the first round over the Steve McNair led Alcorn State University.
The BBC staff picks are as follows: Eric, Mali, and Wva selected Washington, while myself and Janelle (clearly the younger and smarter of the group) are going with Boise State.
I think Boise wins because of Chris Peterson, one way or another. If he stays at Boise and doesn’t take a major conference gig, his players reward him and show their appreciation with their performance in Las Vegas. If he bolts for greener (and warmer) pastures, his players and the interim coach play inspired to prove that Boise State isn’t just Chris Peterson.
ESPN has the broadcast and the play-by-play will be handled by Brent Musburger and Kirk Herbstreit. This one could be a pretty entertaining ballgame!
On Its Way
This week, Ohio State faces a Purdue coach that’s undefeated* against them, and seeks to rebound from a horrible defensive showing at Indiana. So, yeah- our soundtrack is something that should be harped on, even if it seems a little paranoid.
Buckeye 411
Thursday night- no new Parks and Rec, so you’ll have to do with the next best thing. No, not Whitney… for God’s sake, we’re not savages. It’s Bowl Season!!
Vegas!!!
The Basics: Thursday, 8:00 PM ET on ESPN, from Las Vegas. SISU (11-1, 6-1 MWC) and Arizona State (6-6, 4-5 PAC12).
The History: After two years, Eric begged not to have to cover this game. Shows you what he knows- it’s the 20th anniversary!! Woot!! Oh, and this is the game that 6-6 teams with losing conference records should go to.
Southern Idaho State University- No lie, the Broncos got screwed for the second straight year. One loss, and you head to Vegas for a December game? Well, they’ll have better luck next year in their directionally challenged conference, I’m sure. That’s assuming, of course, that they can find someone to a) replace Kellen Moore and b) kick field goals. After being a target for every west coast head coaching opening, I’m sure Chris Peterson chose to stay with the smurf turf for a reason. Their season opened with a great win over Georgia, but they stumbled against TCU due to the aforementioned special teams issues. If we know anything, though, it’s that SISU can beat anyone if they’ve got a bucketload of time to prepare.
Arizona State – Started out so well, beating a Southern Cal team that ended up in the top 5 at the end of the year. But then, it all fell apart, culminating in the loss of their head coach (“retirement”) and a fiasco in finding the new guy. Four straight losses, including to an interim coach at rival Arizona, and change was on the way. In case it turns into basketball, you should be aware that QB Brock Osweiler is 6’4″. If it stays a football game, it’s probably relevant that he’s got 3600 yard passing. Oh, and Votaze Burfict. That is all.
Fun Facts- As you know, Boise State has never played Ohio State. So there’s that. But on the other hand, Vico reminds us how awesome the last time the Buckeyes and Sun Devils met was (Howdy, Fick!)
Who We Got?
Lots of holiday options for this week’s soundtrack, but I’m that guy that thinks Christmas music should be banned until at least December. So, given all of the rumors of this past week and the results from yesterday’s Ohio State game, the R&B genius of Sam And Dave make a return as we give thanks and look to the future.
Ah, Thanksgiving weekend. When thoughts turn to leftover turkey and pie and… football. While the NFL takes front stage on Thursday, and even with the “exciting news” that the NBA is “back, baby!!!”, this weekend was all about the college game. It’s the weekend that puts the best of both worlds together- family and friends gathering together to break bread and then scream at each other because someone had to go to that school just to be different.
And we got three days of amazing games, starting with the end of an era. Because of future schedule issues between the SEC bound aTm and the Big Integer anchor Texas Longhorns, the Turkey Day Tradition saw its last episode end in a classic fashion. This was supposed to be THE year for the Aggies, but failure after failure on their farewell tour led to a mentality where the UT game was a must win to maintain dignity before heading to the 4-8 seasons that SEC play was sure to bring.
Texas’ struggles are also well known (and well documented), and there was a contingent of Longhorn faithful who were as tired of their staff’s decisions regarding offensive and defensive play as some Ohio State faithful have been as of late. For this to end the way that it did highlights the beauty of the rivalry and the reason that college football is the heart of the lives of so many:
Your weekly update from the Ohio State press conference as well as notes from around the world of college sports- this week, we take a pointed look at the NCAA after the jump.
Usually we reserve soundtracks for TWTW, but someone emailed me a song today that I thought I’d share. They described it as “a warning to South Beach re: Mr. John Simon“… enjoy.
Buckeye News
The Las Vegas Bowl is played annually in Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada (shocking). It was started in 1992 (after a 10 year stint as the “California Raisin Bowl”) and originally was a battle between the Big West Conference and the MAC conference. The Big West – a California only conference – split in 1996 and several of its teams moved to the WAC. At that point, the Las Vegas Bowl began to select a WAC team to face off against an at-large opponent from wherever they could be found.
In 1999 the WAC ran into trouble. For 2 years the conference had been made of 16 (!!!) teams split into two divisions, which was further split into 4 quadrants. Realizing that this was completely untenable, several teams split off and joined with a couple non-WAC teams to form the Mountain West Conference – currently the youngest conference in D-1A. When that split occured, the Las Vegas Bowl changed their alignment to choosing a MWC team to face an at-large opponent. In 2001 this became a matchup between the Mountain West and the Pacific 10, and has been that way ever since.
Quick follow up on President Gee’s comments last week regarding TCU and Southern Idaho State’s schedule; particularly that schools outside of the Big Ten and SEC don’t have the same week to week challenges as their “bigger” brothers.
President Gee has stepped away from those comments somewhat, saying
What do I know about college football? I look like Orville Redenbacher. I have no business talking about college football.
God, I love that guy. He also talked about upcoming announcements regarding future schedules that Buckeye fans should be excited about, and about reaching out to the real “Little Sisters Of The Poor” to give them the respect they deserved.
Elsewheres, Ken Gordon at the Dispatch has a great article today looking more closely at the schedule strength, and compares not only overall schedules, but the competition in and out of conferences. While you’ve probably read that Ohio State and Boise’s schedule strengths are pretty close this year, what Ken points out is that… Read More
Scoping it out...
No press conference this week, but we do have Tress’ thoughts from after The Game and so forth
Buckeye 411
Michigan is among the elite programs and will be and their record will reflect that in the course of time but, you know, we all have our ups and downs in a period and so forth and it’s highly competitive. It’s going to become more competitive because we’re adding Nebraska. The world changed when we added Penn State. The world changes even more when we add Nebraska. The world changed when Dano (Dantonio) went over to Michigan State. There’s constantly changes, but Michigan will be back, we don’t have to worry about that.
REPORTER: Jim, obviously you talk all the time about you want to get better over the course of a year. To be 11-1, where do you feel like this team is in achieving this goal and just how good of a team do you think you are at 11-1 at the end of the season?
COACH TRESSEL: Not good enough to be the outright Big Ten champions and automatic bid to the Rose Bowl and all those things that you shoot for, but we’re pretty fair, and I believe we’re a top ten football team and probably going to get to play a top ten football team and see if we’re allowed to stay in the top ten is what I would guess, but I think it goes beyond that.
Sometimes the ball bounces funny and you end up undefeated or you end up losing however many, and our guys just kept working and whatever came their way, they handled it and pressed on and handled adversity and handled success as it came. They need a little break and they need to take a deep breath and then they need to think about playing against one of the top teams in the nation wherever we play, whoever it is. We’ve had — really we’ve had 13 games in 2010. We played a pretty good Oregon team on the first day of the year, so it’s been a lot of fun.
But who cares what I think. See ya
