Question of the day: Who will be playing in the BCS championship game?
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Who will be playing in the BCS championship game at the Rose Bowl? Reporters from across the Tribune family of newspapers will answer this question throughout the day. And we are interested in your comments too, so when you are done reading, chime in!
Nick Matthews, Newport News
Each October, Big 12 South rivals Texas and Oklahoma clash in Dallas. This season they’ll head 1,400 miles west to stage a Red River Rematch at the BCS title game in Pasadena, Calif. True, the championship contest has never matched teams from the same conference. But there’s no rule against it, and the formula is easy. Sooners-Longhorns I is an epic (overtime, anyone?), neither loses another game, and no other team (spare me Lou Holtz’s Notre Dame hype) emerges undefeated. Oklahoma returns Heisman-winning quarterback Sam Bradford and 1,000-yard rushers DeMarco Murray and Chris Brown from last season’s BCS runner-up. Texas counters with quarterback Colt McCoy, an ornery defense and a boulder on its shoulder — a last-second loss at Texas Tech was the Longhorns’ sole blemish in 2008, and in BCS World, that doomed their Big 12 and national title hopes. Texas’ motto this season: No justice, no peace.
More after the jump
Andrea Adelson, Orlando Sentinel
I’ll admit it. I’m unoriginal. I think the University of Florida is going to play Texas in the Rose Bowl for the national championship, like nearly every other pundit, blogger and guru out there.
Texas is out to prove to all of us that it should have been in that national championship game against UF last season, not Oklahoma. The Gators have Tim Tebow – need I say more?
USC will be a pretender with a true freshman at QB. Oklahoma has too many questions on the offensive line. Alabama will lose to the Gators in the SEC championship game. Ohio State could bust up a Texas-UF party if it beats the Trojans and Penn State, but nobody wants to see the Buckeyes get trounced in another national championship game.
So these eyes are focused on Texas vs. UF.