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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Oregon State, Texas going opposite directions

Riley
Schuyler Dixon Associated Press

Oregon State generated the biggest one-year turnaround in school history and could secure its third 10-win season by beating Texas in the Alamo Bowl today in San Antonio.

The Longhorns? They are trying to reverse a three-year slide from the days when 10 wins were just a footnote on the way to BCS bowls.

Beating the 15th-ranked Beavers tonight would be another baby step back to the elite for Mack Brown and company, with still a long way to go. Texas followed a loss to Alabama in the 2009 BCS championship game with a shocking 5-7 record – the only losing season in 15 under Brown – and an 8-5 mark last year that included a Holiday Bowl win over Cal.

Lose to Oregon State, and the Longhorns (8-4) will have a second straight eight-win season and a long offseason to think about a three-game losing streak, too.

“I think that at Texas we want to be 13-0,” Brown said. “The standards are higher than eight, and that’s what the kids need to understand and our coaches do understand. And we are ready to take that next step and get it back to where it should be.”

Mike Riley has had to do a little rebuilding of his own after leading the Beavers (9-3) to 10 wins in 2006 and three more winning seasons after that. Oregon State matched Texas at 5-7 in 2010, then slipped to 3-9 a season ago.

The Beavers are six games better in 2012, beating one Rose Bowl team – Wisconsin – in their opener and almost beating the other – Stanford – on the road.

Source: Longhorns suspend McCoy, Hicks

A person with knowledge of the suspensions tells the Associated Press that Texas has sent home backup quarterback Case McCoy and injured linebacker Jordan Hicks from the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio for violating team rules.

The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the school wasn’t releasing the names of the suspended players. The person said the players broke curfew.

Brown addressed the situation during a news conference Friday and referred to a KENS-TV report that police were investigating two unidentified Texas players in an alleged sexual assault at a San Antonio hotel.