Fiesta Bowl a chance to prove something

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - Texas football coach Mack Brown has a theory about how to pick a winner in a bowl game.

The best predictor, Brown said on Sunday as he talked about his team's Fiesta Bowl game against Ohio State tonight, is to try to see which team is more excited about being at a particular bowl.

"My experience in bowl games is that the teams that want to be there usually win," he said. "To me, that is the biggest thing. Who has the edge? Who is motivated? Who wants to be there?"

He rattled off a partial list of this year's bowl outcomes - Utah over Alabama, Vanderbilt over Boston College and Mississippi over Texas Tech - and said the winners of those games were more excited to be there than the losers.

So, how does this apply to No. 10 Ohio State (10-2) against No.3 Texas (11-1) in the Fiesta Bowl at 8:20 p.m. EST tonight?

Brown finessed that one with the political skills of a coach who has cheerfully posed for pictures with both Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

He thinks he sees two teams who are excited to be at the Fiesta Bowl. "It's a unique game because both teams have to finish," Brown said.

Ohio State's unfinished business is that it has been embarrassed in back-to-back BCS national championship games and came up short of its goal of winning a national title this season.

Texas has issues of its own. It beat Oklahoma during the regular season but watched the Sooners, who also have one loss, go to the Big 12 championship game on the fifth tie-breaker, which was who ranked higher in the BCS standings.

Oklahoma, of course, went on to beat Missouri in the conference championship and will play Florida in the BCS championship game on Thursday night.

Ohio State lost 41-14 to Florida two years ago in the national championship game and 38-24 to LSU last year.

OSU coach Jim Tressel downplayed talk of those two games on Sunday. What he is saying behind closed doors could be different, though.

"Our focus has got to be on an Ohio State 2008 team playing in the 2009 Fiesta Bowl against Texas," Tressel said. "If we're thinking about anything other than that, it is going to distract you from having the ability to handle a very difficult task.

"I would hope there aren't guys on our team who are disappointed, or whatever, that they happened to make the national championship game the last two years because that's not too bad," he said.

Linebacker James Laurinaitis admitted earlier this week the Buckeyes are looking at this game as a chance to prove they are not who they appeared to be in the last two national championship games and in a 35-3 loss to Southern California this season.

"I think it is an opportunity to show people around the country this team has had the talent the last few years, but maybe didn't have the maturity," he said.

Texas' players and Brown have insisted all week that they have put their disappointment over not getting to the BCS championship game behind them.

"We're not worried about trying to prove more than we can," the Longhorns' All-American defensive end Brian Orakpo said. "When you get to thinking about too much, you're not really focused on the game."

But when it was pointed out to Orakpo that the announcers on the Rose Bowl telecast had said USC deserved to be in the discussion of who should be No. 1, he wasn't happy.

"Oh, they started talking about USC again? What a surprise," he replied, with a sarcastic laugh.

The Longhorns hope people are talking about them deserving national championship consideration after tonight's game.

Ohio State's goal is a little different. It just wants to finally dispel the notion it can't win the big game.