TEMPE, Ariz. - Eternally stoic Bill Snyder actually cracked a joke Friday after he and his Kansas State football team landed at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Despite that, and the fact the Fiesta Bowl does not figure into the national-title picture this time around, the Wildcats and the Ohio State Buckeyes are taking the game seriously.
No. 8 KSU and No. 7 OSU arrived Friday in the Valley and will begin preparing for next Friday's matchup - the first between the schools - at Sun Devil Stadium.
Both teams are quite familiar with the Valley bowl scene, if not each other. Ohio State (10-2) won the national championship in last season's Fiesta Bowl, knocking off Miami. Kansas State (11-3) played in the 1997 Fiesta Bowl and 2001 Insight Bowl (and faced Arizona State in last year's Holiday Bowl).
While this game could be somewhat of a disappointment for Ohio State - since it is coming off a loss to Michigan and is back in the same bowl but not defending its title - coach Jim Tressel expressed happiness at being in a BCS game.
"If you're fortunate enough to be part of any one of these four (BCS) bowl games, you ought not to think anyone is overlooking you," Tressel said. "You ought to think you better get prepared."
Kansas State was likely headed for the Alamo Bowl until an upset of then-No. 1 Oklahoma in the Big 12 championship game sent the Wildcats to Tempe.
"This was the best that it could possibly be," Snyder said.
Snyder called Ohio State "unequivocally" the best team he has faced in a bowl game.
"They do all the right things in order to give themselves the best possible chance," Snyder said.
Countered Tressel: "Kansas State has certainly shown the entire country that at this moment in time they have to be thought of as one of the top teams in the country.
"The reality that I would like to think our guys understand is that we're gong to have to play better this year in the Fiesta Bowl in order to be successful than we did a year ago."
Standard procedure on arrival day is for a coach to get off the plane, shake hands with as many yellow-jacketed Fiesta Bowl personnel as possible and then take to a podium to say how great it is to be in Arizona and how much better the weather is here than back home.
But Snyder said his team has been able to practice outside all but once over the past three weeks.
"We just store hay in the indoor facility," he said. "We've had good weather in Kansas. Kansas is the desert of the Midwest, you know."
©2003, East Valley Tribune (Mesa, Arizona)
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
