Bevo's Daily Round Up 1.06.09

Fantastic finish.

Though the Buckeyes took the lead with 2:05 to play, a 26-yard touchdown pass from Texas star Colt McCoy to Quan Cosby with 16 seconds remaining left the Buckeyes to end their third consecutive season in defeat, No. 3 Texas taking the Fiesta Bowl over the No. 10 Buckeyes, 24-21, on Monday night.

"It's a loss. We can't be proud of close," Pryor said. "It's the type of game you've got to take over. We've got to win these games. Hanging with them is not good enough."

The win last night speaks volume about this year's team.

Texas made its statement with heart, resolve and a relentless will to win.

This is the kind of game Mack Brown will cherish long after he’s done. When people ask why he loved coaching, he’ll tell them about this Monday night. He’ll talk about Quan Cosby, who has neither the speed nor size of a great wide receiver. Yet he’s a great wide receiver because he has soft hands, terrific instincts and deceptive strength. He’s a lot like quarterback Colt McCoy, who is gifted in ways that can’t always be measured. He is another guy Brown will remember. Not because he’s big or strong. Not because he does anything flashy, either. He’ll be remembered because he wins.

SI's Arash Markazi believes it could not have ended any other way.

It's become a storyline as cliché as boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl in the end.

Only for Ohio State, its romantic comedy has devolved into a horror film where the Buckeyes get the lead, lose the lead and continually fall short in the end. It's a script they've followed the past three years in BCS bowls, although this year's episode provided the most heart-wrenching finale.

Mack Brown will finally vote Texas No. 1.

"I wasn't sure before right now, but Friday morning I'm going to vote Texas No. 1 because I think this is the best team in the country," Brown said.

Brown still does not believe the current system can pick a definitive national champion.

Mack Brown said Sunday that recent upsets in BCS bowl games, combined with a matchup of one-loss teams in Thursday’s BCS national championship game, make it clear that "our system is not set up to have a definite [No. 1] in years like this."

Barking Carnival discusses the game and provides a wrap-up.

A last look at Eleven Warriors.

Ouch. This one will take a while to get over, but for the first time in three bowl seasons, we can all be proud at how the Buckeyes played.

NewsOK's Barry Tramel does not believe the Fiesta Bowl squeaker should vault the Horns into the No. 1 spot.

AP voters, of course, are not bound by the BCS national championship game, and they can do whatever they want in poll voting, and FOX broadcasters kept asking if the Longhorns could jump to No. 1 in AP.

Let me get this straight. The No. 3-ranked team is supposed to ride a narrow victory, achieved in the final seconds, over the No. 10 team, and leapfrog whoever wins the No. 1 vs. No. 2 shootout of Oklahoma-Florida?

This is not a discussion for people dealing in reality. There is not, and there was not, a scenario by which the Longhorns could jump to the top.

CBSSports' Mike Freeman did not think Texas made a statement last night, either.

Congratulations, Texas. You won. You beat a tortoise-slow Ohio State team with its overrated coach who can no longer win a big postseason game. Nice work.

Now comes the tough love. The Longhorns were victorious and losers at the same time. Yes, both these things are true. They won the game and lost a chance to tell college football that they belong with the big boys this season. They choked away a long shot at history.

ESPN's Adam Rittenberg thinks we made our case, despite the cose win.

The Longhorns won by only three points Monday. They showed tremendous fortitude, made key plays and rallied past an Ohio State team that finally began to play to its potential. Yet a 3-point win against the runner-up from the beleaguered Big Ten Conference won't convince many that Texas should be at the top. Neither will an offense that produced well below its season averages.

 

MIke Leach was profiled on 60 Minutes. The Wiz of Odds has the video, in case you missed it. Houston attorney Tom Kirkendall asks if Leach really is a genius or jjust a master of working his own system.

Ben Burns, a starter on the Cyclone offensive line in 2000 and a third-team All-American, is still at Gene Chizik. He has started a blog.

 

The Sooners

The Sooners go bipolar. Remember this article from Barry Tramel from back in October? Now, they are asking if this is their greatest offensive team to date.

OU vs. Florida is turning into a bad drama with a lot of subplots.

Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer discuss the BCS title game. Barry knows how to be diplomatic.

Both are outstanding players, Heisman Trophy winners. I always said, if I had a quarterback who's going to run my offense, my quarterback's going to have the ability to run (the ball). If I was coaching, I would probably want Tebow because of my playbook. But Oklahoma has a different playbook. Tebow probably couldn't perform as well in Oklahoma's playbook as Bradford does, and Bradford certainly wouldn't run the option like Tebow runs it. ... You're not going to get me into saying I wouldn't have Bradford. I live in this state. (Laughing.) Bradford's going to be the guy playing quarterback for me, OK?

Barry Switzer does not believe past OU's BCS loses have any thing to do with this year's game.

"Anything that has to do with the past doesn't have a damn thing to do with this game. This is a different football team. This is a better team than they've taken to previous bowl games. Anytime you go to a BCS game, especially the championship game, you are playing teams good or better than you. The last two times Oklahoma has been in this situation, they played teams I believed were better than them."

Florida linebacker Brandon Spikes was clearly not impressed with Dominique Franks comments about Tim Tebow.

Florida’s Tim Tebow chuckled Monday when asked his reaction to comments made by Oklahoma cornerback Dominique Franks, who said Tebow would be the Big 12’s fourth-best quarterback.

But for Gator linebacker Brandon Spikes, it was no laughing matter.

"If they can stop our offense, hey, my hat goes off to them," Spikes told reporters during media day. "But I really don't think they can. As long as we play well on defense, give the ball back to Tim and the rest of those guys, we should roll.

Tim Tebow takes the criticism from Franks in stride.

During Monday’s media day at Dolphin Stadium, Tebow smiled slyly when Franks’s comments were brought up.

"There are a lot of good quarterbacks in the Big 12," Tebow said. "I take it as a compliment."

Linebacker Travis Lewis is still tired of hearing about Big 12 defenses.

"We’ve got a lot of guys going out there with chips on their shoulders," Lewis said of what he, and teammates, perceive as media criticism of OU’s defense. "We do listen to the media. We do read some of the articles. It's great to see that everybody expects us to just go out there and two offenses show up and one defense (Florida's) shows up.

The Sooners do need to provide some proof. Remember, A&M scored 14 points off kick returns. Yes, that A&M.

Venables' unit was further compromised by one of the nation's worst kickoff defenses, which allowed four returns for touchdowns and all too routinely gave away field position.

"Our first four games, we really dominated our opponents," Venables says. "Then we lost our middle linebacker (Ryan Reynolds to a season-ending knee injury) and had a bad fourth quarter against Texas. Against Kansas, we had one bad quarter. Gave up a couple of hundred yards, had a guy fall down on a post route and that scored some easy points. We had a bad quarter against Kansas State.

"Nebraska, they scored a touchdown with less than a minute to go. (Texas) A&M scored 14 points off kick returns."

Yes, he gets a little … uh, defensive.

If Percy Harvin is healthy, OU better be prepared to run.

Sam Bradford isn't necessarily comfortable with the notoriety that comes with winning the Heisman.

OU has a three-game losing streak in bowl games. Bob Stoops is sick of hearing about the past.

With OU days away from Thursday's BCS National Championship game against Florida and yet another chance to end the big-game "whoops," Stoops plays it cool when the streak question comes up.

Does it bother you?

"You've got a chance to win a national championship. That's what I'm focused on," he said.

"No, that stuff doesn't ..." his voice trailed off as he shook his head. "We've won our share of games."

Bob Stoops sympathizes with Utah's plight.

"Absolutely," Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops said Monday when asked if he sympathized with college football's lone undefeated team being shut out of the Bowl Championship Series title game. "They're a good football team … an excellent football team. They beat a really good Alabama team."

 

Basketball

Rick Barnes is good at getting under the skin of opponents, especially Arkansas.

When we last saw the Texas Longhorns basketball team, it was being heartily booed in Alltel Arena during the NCAA Tournament.

Rick Barnes, the head coach, said if the fans didn't treat his team fair he would cancel the game he had scheduled with the Arkansas Razorbacks in Fayetteville.

He was kidding.

It was just a joke that some folks took the wrong way, and today at 8 p.m. on ESPN2, a once-fierce rivalry will be resumed.

Texas forward Connor Atchley may not play tonight.

Kansas State has five consecutive wins and they are feeling good about upcoming conference play.

It’s the last nonconference game, a final tuneup for Big 12 play. Coach Frank Martin isn’t sure how his Wildcats will respond when the league portion of the schedule begins, but only because they’re not there yet.

He’s not discouraged by what he’s seen, but he chooses not to issue predictions.

"We continue to grow," Martin said. "That’s what you’re looking for."

No. 6 Oklahoma beat Maryland Eastern Shore 100-64.

The Aggies may not be as good as their 13-1 record.

"I want them to play well all the time"

That's a simple and obvious statement Texas A&M men's basketball coach Mark Turgeon made about his team after the Aggies latest win, a 57-52 victory over 5-7 McNeese State on Saturday.

There are legitimate reasons why Turgeon wants more from his team. Even though the Aggies are going to finish with a better nonconference record than most had predicted, there have been stretches during games that make you wonder how this team is 13-1 going into its final tuneup Monday before Big 12 play.

 

Baseball

Baylor's field of dreams. Bear baseball has been around since 1902 and the school has produced some outstanding players. The Waco Tribune looks at the all-time greats.