A no-win situation for Sooners in Fiesta Bowl?
Fiesta Bowl: Boise State vs. Oklahoma

NORMAN – All that Oklahoma's been through this season, from Bomar-gate to the quack officiating at Oregon to a second-straight loss to — gasp! — Texas, you'd think the Sooners had earned the right to enjoy their Big 12 Championship.

And the feat of pulling off eight straight wins.

And earning a BCS bowl berth, opposite…

Boise State.

It took this long for the Fiesta Bowl to draw a dangerous label for the Sooners:

No-win.

It's the age-old dilemma for teams with the supposed perception of everything to lose and little to gain.

OU may indeed win the game, but then, isn't it supposed to? Its opponent plays on blue turf. And not even Lee Corso couldn't pick Boise State's Mountain West Conference foes out of a lineup.

And should the Sooners fall, well, what could be worse than becoming a punch line to the trivia question: name the first football super-power to lose to a BCS-buster?

It's enough to make the Sooners smirk.

Or squint and ask, "Are you crazy?”

Senior quarterback Paul Thompson: "It's a BCS game. It's the Fiesta Bowl. I mean, that's what we have to win. That's big for us. I think that's big for this program and big for this season, as well as our seniors heading out.

"We'd like to have that. Saying we don't have anything to gain, nothing to win, is just absurd to me. We've got a lot to win.”