OSU accepts Fiesta Bowl

COLUMBUS (AP) — For the fifth time in the last seven years, Ohio State is headed back to the Arizona desert.

The Buckeyes (10-2) accepted a spot Sunday in the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 5, where they will take on what figures to be an angry bunch of Texas Longhorns (11-1). Texas is outraged that an Oklahoma team that it beat by 10 points is playing in the national championship game ahead of them.

The Longhorns will have a point to make.

“They want to be at their best and they would love people to turn on the TV set and say, ‘Hey, this is one of the best teams in the country,’ ” Ohio State coach Jim Tressel said of the Longhorns’ motivation.

Yet Tressel said he doubted if Texas coach Mack Brown would use the slight to motivate his team.

“He’s going to coach his kids to do the right things for the right reasons and become as good as they can be,” Tressel said. “I don’t think [he will use] gimmicks or ‘Win one for the Gipper’ or any of that stuff. They don’t need that. They’re good enough without it.”

The game will pit teams who split mammoth regular season showdowns in 2005 and 2006. No. 4 Ohio State lost 25-22 in 2005 at home to quarterback Vince Young and No. 2 Texas, which would go on to win the national championship. The next year the Buckeyes won in Austin, 24-7, in the second game for Longhorns standout quarterback Colt McCoy, now among a handful of Heisman Trophy favorites.

There is speculation that Texas could still have a shot at a piece of the national championship if it were to win convincingly over Ohio State while Oklahoma — a team that the Longhorns beat 45-35 on a neutral field in October — takes on Florida for the Bowl Championship Series title in Miami on Jan. 8.

Ohio State also has motivation, having lost in the last two BCS title games by lopsided scores. The Buckeyes even lost one of them — a 41-14 beating to Florida in the 2007 finale — on the same University of Phoenix Stadium field where they will meet Texas.

“It’ll be nice to get down there again and hopefully this time there’s better memories of the place,” linebacker James Laurinaitis said.

The Buckeyes appeared in the Fiesta Bowl in 2003, 2004 and 2006, pounding Notre Dame 34-20 in the most recent trip after upsetting top-ranked Miami 31-24 in double-overtime to win the national title in 2003 and rolling over Kansas State 35-28 in the 2004 game. Those three games were all played at Arizona State’s Sun Devil Stadium.

It’s the fourth year in a row Ohio State has gone to a BCS bowl game. The Buckeyes are 18-21 in bowl games, losing their last two after winning four in a row.

Ohio State (10-2) has been patiently waiting since beating up on rival Michigan 42-7 in the regular-season finale Nov. 22.

The Buckeyes have been watching the scheduled games and conference championships since then, continually evaluating how each outcome affected them.

They got a huge break when Oregon State lost at home to Oregon on Nov. 29, making Southern California the Rose Bowl champion. USC was a lock to make a BCS bowl game, and had the other OSU beaten Oregon it would have won the Pac-10 because of it’s stunning victory over the Trojans two weeks after USC throttled the Buckeyes in September, 35-3. With Oregon State knocked out of the BCS, that opened the door for the Buckeyes to get an at-large bid.

“It’s a quality opponent,” cornerback Malcolm Jenkins said about Texas. “This is college football at its best. Everybody’s going to get up for the game and be ready to play.”