Published: Monday, 12/28/2015 – Updated: 4 minutes ago Teams will renew rivalry Friday BY DAVID BRIGGSBLADE SPORTS WRITER PHOENIX — Just off of East Buckeye Road, the Ohio State football team’s double-decker Boeing 747 plane touched down at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport early Sunday night. The Buckeyes are in town to play Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl. But if the locals didn’t know any better, they might have surmised it was for the slightly bigger game in a couple weeks here. Just ask Fighting Irish coach Brian Kelly. Borrowing a line from his kill-em-with-kindness predecessor, Lou Holtz, Kelly said, “We think we are playing the best team in the country.” “No disrespect to any of the teams that are in the final four,” he said after the Irish deplaned from an oversized jet of their own. “They have all earned their way there by what they have done. But we’re playing the defending national champs. … This is not much different than the team that played last year, and maybe they’re a little bit better than last year’s football team.” Ohio State, of course, will not get a chance to show it on the biggest stage. Its last-second loss to Michigan State last month assured a new champion will be knighted Jan. 11 in Glendale, Ariz. The Buckeyes, though, have long since accepted their fate. Like eighth-ranked Notre Dame (10-2), which fell by two points at No. 1 Clemson and No. 6 Stanford, they arrived in the desert in good spirits. Ohio State coach Urban Meyer reaffirmed that motivation will not be a concern. “When you have extremely high expectations and then you stumble, you are concerned, very concerned,” Meyer said, referring to the Buckeyes’ loss to the Spartans. …
Continue Reading: Buckeyes, Irish arrive for Fiesta Bowl
