Ohio State Buckeyes had higher hopes during the preseason but the Sugar Bowl is OK.
Ohio State coach Jim TresselThe Ohio State Buckeyes will play in the Sugar Bowl, but the Buckeyes previously had their focus on the Rose Bowl or the BCS national championship game.
Columbus Dispatch reporter Ken Gordon writes how just because the Buckeyes are not playing in the Rose Bowl or BCS title game, that doesn't mean that they don't appreciative their Jan.4 date with Arkansas.
It's just a sign of the high expectations, writes Gordon, that have been created in a program that views Big Ten titles as a baseline and competing for national championships as an annual occurrence.
This is a school, after all, that will make its ninth appearance in a Bowl Championship Series game in the system's 13 years, more than any other program (Oklahoma has eight, Southern California seven).
The Buckeyes are 5-3 in those games and are working on a streak of six in a row.
"It's weird; we've been kind of spoiled with it, at least my class, just because it's all we've known," senior receiver Dane Sanzenbacher said. " 'Bowl game' to us has come to mean 'BCS Bowl' because we don't know what another one feels like."
It was coach Jim Tressel who put up a sign about a national title and Rose Bowl as the goals entering this season, but Tressel says in the article how there's room for feeling good about a non-Rose Bowl BCS game.
"Of course, you'd like to be in a BCS game," said Tressel, whose eight BCS appearances are the most by any coach. "There's something about being one of the top 10 teams in the country. There's 10 teams that play in the BCS, and if you can earn your way into the top 10, that's a heck of a thing."