Tonight's Fiesta Bowl between Texas and Ohio State is expected to be rather boring and one-sided. Thank goodness How I Met Your Mother is on.
Perhaps the Fiesta Bowl would be more exciting if there wasn't a potential national champion Texas squad intent on crushing anything and everything in its wake versus a dud Ohio State team intent on sucking. Perhaps the bowl needed a different matchup. Perhaps it needed a non-BCS school.
Perhaps it needed Boise State.
Now, we made a promise several weeks ago to cease and desist with the talk of how Boise State deserved a Fiesta bid over Ohio State. It was unbecoming of us, even though we knew we were right.
So we'll avoid mentioning Boise State for the rest of this piece and simply state that a non-BCS school bumping bodies with a BCS behemoth is infinitely more enjoyable than a BCS school showdown that no one wants to see. In this case, a BCS school is infinitely more enjoyable than Ohio State.
Utah made it apparent this season that the little guys can play with the big 'uns, so it makes sense (and makes for good TV) to have deserving teams play up a level and see what happens. Even the less deserving would be attractive. They'd certainly draw more attention than Terrelle Pryor blowing off media day.
Take a look at the following matchups and tell yourself you wouldn't be at least intrigued to watch.
- Texas vs. Buffalo. The Bulls' first bowl game versus a team that should be playing in the national championship game? Talk about David vs. Goliath. And playing the role of David would be a minority coach. There's only, like, five of those anywhere! Charles Barkely would love it.
- Texas vs. TCU. The chance to see one of the nation's best defenses versus one of the nation's best offenses would be fun. Plus, there's a good chance TCU would lose, and that would make us very happy right about now.
- Texas vs. BYU. We believe this is a matchup Graham Watson picked to start the year.
- Texas vs. Ball State. This would give us a good chance to see just how good Ball State really is (note: this would be better if Buffalo hadn't beaten the Cardinals in the MAC championship).
- Texas vs. Idaho. For laughs, mostly.
Of course, it's too late to change anything with the Fiesta Bowl, and with hindsight being 20/20, there's probably no way that bowl organizers knew this game would be so much of a dud. We're stuck with Texas vs. Ohio State tonight ... unless we have CBS. Which we do. Thank goodness.