NEW ORLEANS — Jim Tressel and Bobby Petrino dutifully posed in front of the Sugar Bowl trophy yesterday, forcing smiles and mumbling a few pleasantries to each other while the cameras clicked away.
Surely there was no mention of what happened on New Year’s Day.
That would have wiped the grin right off Tressel’s face.
The Big Ten is still stinging from an embarrassing performance on the first day of 2011, when its teams put up an oh-fer in five bowl games. Making matters worse, three of those defeats came against the SEC, the other half of that perennial debate over where they play the best college football: the North or the South?
No. 6 Ohio State can soothe some of the sting by winning tonight’s Sugar Bowl against eighth-ranked Arkansas in yet another Big Ten-SEC matchup.
Tressel would prefer not to put the entire conference on his team’s back, especially since the Buckeyes (11-1) have never won a bowl game against an SEC team in nine previous tries.
“We always say if you ever want to become the best, you play against the best,” said Tressel, who has an 0-3 bowl record against the SEC in his decade as the Buckeyes’ coach — including back-to-back losses in the national championship game.
Ohio State will be the final Big Ten team to play this season, relegated this time to one of the BCS backup games. But there’s always a bit of a subplot when these two conferences get together.
Petrino, the Razorbacks’ third-year coach, wants to keep the trend going. But, like Tressel, he’s not chalking up a win for Arkansas (10-2) just because of conference affiliation.
“I don’t think any of that matters for this game,” he said. “What you see in this game is a great football team from Ohio State that’s a tremendous challenge.”
Besides, the Buckeyes have been fretting about bigger concerns that beating the SEC. Star quarterback Terrelle Pryor and three other offensive starters will get to play in this game, but they’ve already been suspended for the first five games next season, the NCAA-imposed punishment for selling off memorabilia and receiving discounts on tattoos.
