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Hats Off to the Buckeyes

By David Williams
For Outsports.com

Other Fiesta Bowl Pages

l Fiesta Bowl photo gallery l Season Wrapup: Hats Off to the Buckeyes l Easier to Hate Ohio State

(David Williams is a former linebacker for the University of Arkansas)

Wow! I guess that is the best way to wrap things up after the National Championship game we had this year. I must humbly admit that, like so many other college football analysts, I projected this game to be a boring run away by Miami. Boy were we wrong.

The 2002 College Football Championship game between Miami and Ohio State will go down as one of the best games ever played. Unfortunately, it will also go down as a National Championship game that was marred by bad officiating. But, I will discuss that more here in a minute.

I must take my hat off to Coach Jim Tressel and the Ohio State Buckeyes. They came into this game as a team, and they played as a team. When the Buckeye offense could not get untracked, the Ohio State defensive unit put together one of the most dominating performances I have ever seen. We all expected to see Buckeye RB Maurice Clarett run all over the mediocre Miami rush defense. But that did not developed, so Tressel dug into his back of tricks and put together a masterful game plan making use of QB Craig Krenzel to rack up the highest total of rushing yards for either team.

This plan, mixed with the amazing defensive effort by Ohio State was just enough to put them over the top. But, I must also give honorable mention to Miami QB Ken Dorsey. This guy never quit. Even after having three turnovers (two of which were not his fault), he continued to pull his team together and continued to lead them back time and time again. This kid truly has guts, and college football is going to miss him next year. But stayed tuned, as I am sure we will be seeing a lot of this guy on Sunday afternoons in the NFL.

There are two events that I witnessed in this game, that really clouded the game for me. The first was the helmet-to-knee collision of an Ohio State defender with Miami RB Willis McGahee in the fourth quarter. As I saw this collision, and watched McGahee lay their on the turf, I am not ashamed to say that tears rolled down my cheeks. Memories came flooding back to me on that November afternoon in 1989 when I was in the same position as McGahee, suffering from the same type of impact. I truly hope that the knee injury does not end McGahee's brilliant career as it did mine. My thoughts and prayers go out to the McGahee family and wish for a speedy recovery.

The second event that clouded this great game, was the terrible officiating that took place. One would think that, in the National Championship Game, you would have the best officials that the NCAA had to offer. This was not the case this year. As the game progressed, I watched several no calls/bad calls take place against both teams. The most critical call came late in the first overtime with Ohio State on a 4th and 3. Krenzel threw an incomplete pass to the right corner of the end zone. The game was over right? Miami had won the National Championship right? Well, yeah they should have but the officials called defensive pass interference and gave Ohio State 1st and goal on the 1.

Ohio State went on to tie, and then win the game in the second overtime. The problem was, there was no pass interference. Buckeye WR Chris Gamble had already had an opportunity to complete the pass before Miami defender Glenn Sharpe made contact. As ABC commentator Dan Fouts stated, "You could not have coached a defensive player to play it any better." But as a result, Ohio State won, Miami lost. Now, I want to make it clear here. I am not saying that the game should be tossed. Every football team has to overcome bad officiating at least once in their season, and Miami was just not able to overcome this result. However, I think that it is unfortunate that the great game Ohio State played will be forever tainted by the bad officiating that occurred.

In closing, I want to thank the NCAA for finally agreeing to review the BCS system. The NCAA announced on Jan 2 that they are forming an exploratory committee to do an overview of the BCS system. The committee will consist of six University Presidents (one from each major conference). They will be given three options: Keep the BCS as is; go back to the old College Bowl System, or set up a College Football playoff system. Changes will not take effect until the 2005 College Football season.

Now, enjoy what I consider to be the Best and Worst of the 2002 College Bowl Season. I decided these picks based on all of the Bowl games, excluding only the Fiesta Bowl.

Most Exciting Bowl Game: Houston Bowl (Oklahoma State 33, Southern Mississippi 23), Holiday Bowl (Kansas State 34, Arizona State 27)

Most Boring Bowl Game: Rose Bowl (Oklahoma 34, Washington State 14)

Most Impressive Individual Performance: USC QB Carson Palmer, and The Auburn Tigers Defensive Unit. Honorable Mention: Texas Tech QB Kliff Kingsbury (but then again, he was playing against Clemson)

Most Disappointing Individual Performance: Iowa QB Brad Banks, Arkansas QB Matt Jones

Best Coaching Performance: USC Head Coach Pete Carroll

Worst Coaching Performance: Tie between Penn State Head Coach Joe Paterno and Arkansas Head Coach Houston Nutt.