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Editors note: The following article incorrectly listed the host site of the 2004 national championship game between OU and Southern Cal. The article has been corrected.
The 2010 OU football team has spent all season overcoming stigmas from last year — road woes, quarterback play and kicking were all storylines from the beginning of the season through its very end.
However, if the Sooners win the Fiesta Bowl against Connecticut, they will have to remove from their proverbial backs a monkey that has hung around for a bit longer than that.
Even though OU won the Sun Bowl against Stanford last year, the team has still lost five-consecutive BCS bowl games, including three national championship games, dating back to the 2003 national championship game against LSU in the Sugar Bowl.
OU’s bowl history after the 2000 national title win goes like this: three non-BCS bowl wins (2002 Cotton Bowl, 2005 Holiday Bowl, 2009 Sun Bowl), three national championship losses (2003 Sugar Bowl, 2004 Orange Bowl, 2008 Orange Bowl), a Rose Bowl win (2002) and two Fiesta Bowl losses (2006, 2007).
The 2004 Sooners were blown out by USC in the national championship game at the Orange Bowl, 55-19.
Boise State put itself on the map by winning a 43-42 overtime thriller in the 2006 Fiesta Bowl. The following year, OU went back to the Fiesta Bowl and fell to West Virginia, 48-28.
In 2008, the Sooners got another shot at the National Championship, this time against Tim Tebow and Florida in the Orange Bowl, but OU lost 24-14.
Since coach Bob Stoops has been at OU, the program has returned to prominence after falling off in the 1990s and has had one of the most successful decades of any program in college football, including seven Big 12 Championships since 2000.
But just as much as OU has become known for home wins and conference dominance, it also has become known for BCS-bowl ineptitude, the lone stain on what has been a stellar decade for Sooner football.
There is really no favorable history that could indicate OU is destined to beat the Huskies on New Year’s Day.
But OU did roll through the end of the season this year. Connecticut did lose four games in 2010. And for OU to lose to an unranked — and, in many opinions, undeserving — Connecticut team would be the ugliest stain of all on the Sooners’ BCS turmoil.
It is unlikely OU will overlook or be overconfident against the Huskies. Stoops, who understands — and often emphasizes — the value of conference championships, has already said he and his team respect what the Huskies have done.
After starting the season 3-4, Connecticut won its last five games — all in Big East play — to earn the conference championship out of a three-way tie with West Virginia and South Florida.
UConn has only been in the Big East since 2004. Until 2000, the Huskies played in Division 1-AA. After the 1999 season, Connecticut left that division and spent two years as a transitional team before moving to Division 1-A, now known as the Football Bowl Subdivision.
Even though the expectations are lower, a Fiesta Bowl win would go a long way in establishing Connecticut’s football program.
On the first day of 2011, two programs with very different backgrounds will come together in Arizona to compete for the Fiesta Bowl, and the result could dramatically alter the perceptions of the two teams, regardless of who wins.
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CTP 1 year, 5 months ago
OU WON the Rose Bowl in 2003! I was there and they played Washington State (not USC) and completely dominated that BCS game. You didn't mention that game at all to bring perspective to the story. They lost in the Orange Bowl to USC.
HecklerOU 1 year, 5 months ago
Need to check your facts. OU played USC in the Orange Bowl not the rose bowl. OU's only appearance in the Rose bowl was on new years day in 2003 and a 34-14 win over Washington St. Which was OU's last BCS bowl victory.
WalkingMan 1 year, 5 months ago
This is the choppiest, most disjointed article I've ever read. And as mentioned above, check your facts man, that is a huge mistake. I'm assuming someone else had to read this as well before it was printed. Do you all not have fact-checkers?