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Updated Nov 24, 2008 2:31 PM ET
     
 
It appears a surging Ohio State team will get a chance to restore its battered national reputation in a bowl game, but there's no guarantee it will be a Bowl Championship Series game. Moments after beating Michigan 42-7 on Saturday, Buckeyes players were looking ahead at possible destinations. "It better be a BCS game, that's my only requirement," receiver Brian Hartline said. "The Orange Bowl would be a huge honor, or Fiesta, whatever they're talking about now. All of them would be a huge honor." But they're also all a huge "if." Ohio State is 10-2 and ranked 10th in the latest BCS standings. The bowl possibilities range from playing Alabama or Florida in the Sugar Bowl to facing Texas or Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl, to meeting Georgia in the Capital One Bowl, or another non- BCS game. Much of it depends on Oregon State. If the Beavers (8-3) beat visiting Oregon (8-3) on Saturday, they clinch the Pacific 10 championship and a Rose Bowl spot opposite Penn State. That would send Southern California into the at-large BCS pool and, based on its win over Ohio State, knock the Buckeyes out of the mix -- provided USC wins its final two games, of course, over Notre Dame (6-5) and UCLA (4-6). If Ohio State were in the at-large pool, "we'd love to have them," said Michael Christovich, a Sugar Bowl representative who attended the Michigan game. "We enjoyed having them so much last year, (OSU is) such a class act, and the fans, they travel en masse, it's so great," he said. It appears the national championship game will pit the Alabama-Florida winner against a Big 12 team. In that case, the Sugar and Fiesta get the first two at-large picks. The Sugar almost certainly will pick the Alabama-Florida loser, and the Fiesta will likely select another Big 12 team. After that, the order is Fiesta, Sugar, Orange. Would the Fiesta nab OSU or Utah? If the Fiesta goes with Utah, the Sugar would snap up the Buckeyes, leaving the Big East champion (likely Cincinnati) to face the Atlantic Coast Conference champ in the Orange. But again, this is contingent on Oregon State. If the Buckeyes get knocked out of the BCS , the Capital One would feature Ohio State and the next-best SouthEastern Conference team, which appears to be Georgia (9-2). In summary, then, two of the three most likely bowl scenarios have OSU playing an SEC team. The Buckeyes are 0-9 against SEC teams in bowl games. "I would think (OSU) would relish getting that sort of proverbial monkey off your back by playing an SEC team," Christovich said. Since losing to Penn State on Oct. 25, the Buckeyes have won three games by a combined score of 117-37. OSU has rushed for 781 yards in November, or 260.3 yards a game. The players feel as if they're finally coming together after a turbulent season, and they're eager to make amends for losing the past two national-title games. It won't be in the title game, obviously, but a bowl victory over a respected opponent would certainly help OSU's image. "We have to step up to the plate and actually win a bowl game," defensive tackle Nader Abdallah said. "It really doesn't matter which bowl we go to, as long as we go to a bowl where we're able to play one more time as a whole team and be recognized nationally and be able to show that we had a couple bumps in the road, but we ended the season on a high note." kgordon@dispatch.com
Tagged: Utah, Oregon State, Florida, Oregon, Penn State, Michigan, Georgia, Ohio State, Alabama, Ohio

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