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Arkansas Razorbacks

January 4, 2011 by · Comments Off on Arkansas Razorbacks 

Arkansas Razorbacks, (AP) – Even after Ohio State corner Chimdi Chekwas has been said about the futility of the Buckeyes bowl “against teams from the Southeastern Conference, it was hard to believe.

“I think Ohio State has beaten the SEC in bowl games, if I’m not mistaken,” said Friday Chekwas, an incredulous look on his face. “It can not be in all the bowls. … I’ll go on the computer and watch all that, but there were a lot of bowl games and I feel like they won some bowl games against teams the SEC, or perhaps they beat a team from the SEC in a regular game. ”

Well, the last part is true. The Buckeyes beat the teams in the SEC during the regular season, most recently LSU in 1988. In bowl games, however, Ohio State is 0-9 against teams from the conference that produced the four former national champions.

The series includes losses to Florida and LSU in games BCS title for the seasons 2006 and 2007, and the longer it goes, over the Buckeyes have to hear about it when they find themselves meeting another SEC team in the playoffs. This time, Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl on Tuesday night.

“I know that personally I have lost three in a row against the SEC,” Ohio State coach Jim Tressel said. “I’m not tired of hearing about it. It is a reminder for me how good the SEC is in football. We’re playing another great Arkansas. ”

For their part, the Arkansas players and coaches are trying not to make too much of the line. None of them want to get caught talking about any sort of shortage of talent between the SEC and Big Ten. That may be the reasons for the Buckeyes need to avoid having to hear about the course from 00 to 10, the next time they meet a team from the SEC in a bowl game.

“It’s nothing I take seriously because each year each different team,” Arkansas quarterback Ryan Mallett said. “I do not know what happened. I do not know how to explain it. ”

Mallet knows only that he does not want this team in Arkansas, the first school to go to a BCS bowl, being also the first conference loss at Ohio State in the playoffs.

“Absolutely – I do not want to help end this sequence,” said Mallett, a transfer from Michigan who also acknowledged some residual animosity toward the Wolverines’ archrivals.

The first time Ohio State has encountered an SEC team in the playoffs was when Woody Hayes Buckeyes met Paul “Bear” Bryant Alabama Crimson Tide in 1977 on Sugar Bowl. Bama smashed the Buckeyes 35-6.

Next in the series losses came to Auburn in the 1989 Hall of Fame Bowl, and three Florida Citrus Bowl loss to Georgia in 1992, Alabama in 1994 and Tennessee in 1995. Then came back-to-back Outback Bowl defeats South Carolina in 2000 and 2001, followed by two losses BCS championship game.

As losses mounted, analyst’s college football began to espouse the theory that the speed of the team of the SEC, especially on defense, is higher than the Big Ten.

One person out of his way to debunk this line of thought this week is Arkansas offensive coordinator Garrick McGee, who spent four seasons in Big Ten country as an assistant coach at Northwestern University.

“The way you play fast, then you’re ready and you understand what you do and how you want to attack, and you understand your opponent,” said McGee. “All the talk about the Ohio State not being fast, I do not buy into that at all. There is a game that I coached when they had us 47-zip at halftime. ”

The most beneficial experience against Ohio State, McGee added, the credibility conferred upon him when he tells the Razorbacks to avoid overconfidence.

“When some people might try to convince our children because (Ohio State) lost against teams from the SEC in the past, they are not as fast or as talented … I can avoid it, “said McGee.” This is not true at all. This will be like the games we’ve played this season. It will go down to the wire. ”

Ohio State players say they do not see the series as any kind of weight on his back. If anything, they would meet with teams from the SEC in bowls each year until they start to fight.

“It’s like a motivational thing,” Buckeyes linebacker Ross Homan said. “We kind of look like: It is the present, the here and now than in the past we can not control what we do in this game, Tuesday night …”

Although they’ll be long gone, Ohio State players welcomed the recent announcements concerning agreements to play home and home series with Tennessee and Georgia.

“You want to be on a big stage, you know, why not play against the best in the nation?” Homan said. “It’s a great idea.”

As for the task at hand, senior defensive end Cameron Heyward said last against a team in the playoffs SEC could boost the confidence of returning players for next year, “and we get to close this sequence bit higher.”

Heyward said he doubted the Buckeyes past miserable ‘against the SEC will not affect how they play Arkansas, but he understands the interest that Ohio State fans and, by extension, many Big Ten fans have to see change.

“There are many great teams in the Big Ten and the SEC,” Heyward started, but that is what the bowl games are all about -. Show who is the best conference”

Copyright © 2011 the Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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