Badin vs. Versailles
Law Enforcement Memorial Day
American Idol 2012 finale
Home > Blogs > Buckeyes Beat > Archives > 2009 > January > 05
Monday, January 5, 2009
National exposure
The Blind Boys of Alabama just sang the national anthem.
They should mandatory at every major sporting event.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment |
“Get ‘em while they’re cold”
At kickoff here, it is a pleasant 55 degrees, even warmer inside the University of Phoenix Stadium with the retractable roof shut.
Only the scalpers were miserable.
One scalper was selling five tickets, faced value $150, for $20 apiece … really. And no one was buying.
“You can’t give them away,” said Mike from the Bay Area. “Get ‘em while they’re cold.”
This is at the same venue where Ohio State-Florida tickets at the same face value were bringing $1,000 a pop, with no shortage of customers.
Tickets for the Ohio State-Miami game here at Sun Devil Stadium after the 2002 season went for the game price.
“I was watching people shell out thousand dollar bills back then,” said Steve from Mentor, Ohio, who has been to the four Ohio State bowl games here.
“I’m just trying to get face value here, but I can’t get $50.”
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment |
Second time the charm
Troy Graham mingled with Buckeye fans outside University of Phoenix Stadium 90 minutes before tonight’s Fiesta Bowl, traveling the 1,599 miles thanks to his brother-in-law and the Daily News.
Lewis, who lives in Topeka, Kan., won the Daily News’ online contest and received two free tickets to the game against Texas.
When Lewis could not use them, he called Graham, who lives in Dayton and was more than pleased to take the tickets off his hands.
“The paper Fed Exed the tickets to me, and we got out here yesterday,” said Graham, who brought Robert Jackson with him.
“We came out for the weekend. It’s great.”
A Buckeye fan, Graham watches the game on TV but has attended only one previous game in person, against Northwestern two years ago.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment |
43 … and counting
Ohio State’s seniors enter their final game with chance to make school history.
The Buckeyes have won 43 games since 2005, tied for the most in any four-year period with the 2002-05 and 1995-98 teams.
“We want to break that record,” said Huber Heights’ Marcus Freeman, whose career has spanned the two most recent 43-game winners after a knee injury forced him to redshirt in 2005.
“You want to be known as one of the most successful classes of Ohio State football. I don’t think this game is going to define the senior class, because I think we have accomplished so many different things over the past four years that no one game can define us.
“At the same time, this will be the last game and we want to go out on a positive note.”
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment |
Texas seeks half of No. 1; Buckeyes have been there
With the Fiesta Bowl less than six hours away, the talk has turned to split national championships, a subject Ohio State knows a thing or two about.
The Buckeyes finished No. 1 in the 1954 AP poll and in the 1957 United Press International poll but were second in the other poll those years, to UCLA (1954, UPI), Auburn (1957, AP).
If things break just right in the final two major bowls, the thinking goes, Texas could win the AP share of the 2008 national championship.
The BCS side already has been decided - the winner of the Oklahoma-Florida game automatically is its No. 1.
According to the theorists, Texas would have a chance to sway the writers who vote in the AP poll if:
—- the Longhorns overwhelm Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl, which is far from likely, and;
—- the BCS title game Jan. 8 is sloppy, low-scoring and close.
If Florida beats Oklahoma by a field goal or less, Texas and Florida would have one loss apiece, and the Longhorns could get votes because they beat the Sooners more decisively (45-35 on Oct. 11).
If Oklahoma just slips past Florida, both Texas and Oklahoma would have one loss - and, again, Texas did beat Oklahoma.
“Monday’s our national championship game,” Texas senior cornerback Ryan Palmer said.
“It’s a crazy scenario. You can’t control what BCS does. You can only control what you do. On Monday, we can control everything we do. If the writers consider us the national champion, that would be great, but we can win another bowl game and have a 12-win season. Everything that we want to do is still intact. We just have to go out and perform well.”
As Longhorns running back Chris Ogbonnaya said: “We can’t talk about being in the national championship picture without having a victory” today.
