BCS bowl games offer storied programs, great coaching matchups
By Ivan Maisel
ESPN.com
(Archive)
Updated: December 8, 2008
If you are looking for someone to hold the BCS' hand and tell it that the bowl matchups are correct, you had best read elsewhere.
I don't know whether No. 1 Oklahoma and No. 2 Florida are the two best teams, and anyone who tells you they are doesn't know, either. He just has a louder opinion.
But this much is true: Of the five BCS games announced Sunday night, three of them, including the championship game, are keepers. A fourth, the Allstate Sugar Bowl between No. 4 Alabama and No. 6 Utah, is a plate of fusion cuisine that will feel right at home in the Big Easy. And what if the BCS were to hold the FedEx Orange Bowl and a Metro Conference reunion broke out?
But back to the big three. The BCS National Championship Game and the Rose and Fiesta bowls will put storied programs and great coaches on the same field in the kind of intersectional games that we crave but don't see often enough.
Aaron M. Sprecher/Icon SMI
Bob Stoops and Co. will face Florida for the first time.
In fact, we have never seen Florida play Oklahoma. They will meet for the first time on Jan. 8, unless you count the meeting seven years and one day earlier. That's when Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley, searching for a replacement for head coach Steve Spurrier, flew to Norman to woo Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops, the defensive coordinator on Spurrier's 1996 national championship Gators.
Stoops, 12 months removed from winning a crystal football of his own with the Sooners, declined to pursue the discussion. Foley hired Saints defensive coordinator Ron Zook and gave him three years, then beat Notre Dame to the altar to woo then-Utah coach Urban Meyer.
Because Meyer has won one national championship, in 2006, either Florida will deny its onetime fair-haired boy a second BCS title or vice versa.
The FedEx BCS National Championship Game will be Meyer's 100th game as head coach. He is 82-17 (.828) and already has won a national championship. As good as that is, it's not difficult to find a coach with a similar record. Stoops, in his first 100 games, went 82-18 (.820) and won a national championship. Stoops has increased his pace of winning, raising his record to 109-23 (.826).
Meyer and Stoops rank second and third in winning percentage among active coaches (behind USC's Pete Carroll), and their records are so similar that an Oklahoma victory would reverse their positions.
The Sooners have won four of the past five Big 12 championships and six in Stoops' 10 seasons. Meyer has won his second Southeastern Conference title in four seasons, adding that to the pair of Mountain West championships he won in his two seasons at Utah (2003 and '04).
The Rose Bowl Game presented by Citi between No. 5 USC and No. 8 Penn State is a keeper as well, a matchup of two rich traditions and a rematch of the 1923 Rose Bowl. The Trojans won that game 14-3, defeating the young Nittany Lions coach Joe Paterno.
Correction: Paterno did not begin coaching Penn State in 1923. Really.
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Mack Brown and Texas will meet Ohio State for the third time.
When No. 3 Texas plays No. 10 Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl, the matchup will feel a little more familiar. This will be the teams' third meeting in four seasons. The Longhorns won in Columbus 25-22, on their way to winning the 2005 national championship. The Buckeyes won in Austin 24-7, on their way to the championship game a season later.
Alabama, like Texas and USC, will be expected to win its BCS bowl by a healthy margin, even if the Utes are the only undefeated team to play in a BCS bowl game. The Crimson Tide will have an edge in athleticism, and the Louisiana Superdome can't print enough tickets for the Alabama fans. They are a short drive from New Orleans, and they haven't been there for the Sugar Bowl in 16 years.
No. 12 Cincinnati's first trip to a BCS game, the Orange Bowl against No. 19 Virginia Tech, doesn't bring much sizzle. The Bearcats and the Hokies spent 17 seasons together (1975 to 1991) in the non-football, defunct Metro Conference, and we'll pause here for you to say, "Wow."
They both lost more than one game during the regular season, and the Bearcats' ranking is the highest that either team has achieved this season. In fact, Cincinnati didn't appear in the BCS standings until after the games of Nov. 8, and Virginia Tech didn't arrive until last week.
The Hokies feel they arrived right on time. So do eight of the other nine teams. Texas may be smarting, especially now that the Associated Press voters moved Florida past both the Sooners and the Longhorns by a substantial margin.
You may resume your regularly scheduled argument about who deserves to play for No. 1.
Ivan Maisel is a senior writer for ESPN.com. Send your questions and comments to Ivan at ivan.maisel@espn3.com. His new book, "The Maisel Report: College Football's Most Overrated & Underrated Players, Coaches, Teams, and Traditions," is on sale now. For more information, go to TheMaiselReport.com.
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