Pete’s on the Hot Seat

Watching last night’s absolutely amazing Super Bowl that will undoubtedly go down as the best of all time mainly because of the classic, game-changing play-making orchestrated by the Steelers’ future hall of fame QB Big Ben, I couldn’t help but think about a recent epic game that we failed to highlight.

The Fiesta Bowl.  Texas vs. Ohio State, where once again, Texas won due to last second heroics from a star quarterback.  And this wasn’t against a USC team riding a wave of media success into a national championship game they’d already been deemed the winners of, led by a coach whose ego barely fit into the Rose Bowl that night.  No, this was against a Buckeyes team desperate not to be embarrassed on the big stage during bowl season for the third year in a row.  And they more than accomplished that task.

After USC’s win over Ohio State, everyone (well, almost everyone, more on that later) is talking about how USC is the clear #1 team and will be in the national championship game come January.  We’ve heard that before, only to have Pete Carroll screw things up.

Ohio State was clearly overrated.  They got blown out by LSU and Florida the last two years.  It would have been a disappointment for USC NOT to blow them out.  In fact, failing to score 40 points on them is practically a loss.

Sure USC gave them their most lopsided loss under Jim Tressel and held them without a touchdown for the first time in 140 games.  Big deal.  They were missing their leading rusher, Chris “Beanie” Wells, a extraordinary talented running back who surely would have won the Heisman this year if not for his unfortunate injury.