Tradition-rich Oklahoma, the theory goes, has nothing to gain and everything to lose when the Big 12 Conference champion Sooners (11-2) take on undefeated Boise State of the Western Athletic Conference in the Jan. 1 game in Glendale, Ariz.

Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops and his players say the only problem with that theory is that it's completely flawed. To a man, the seventh-ranked Sooners say that while No. 9 Boise State (12-0) might be from a non-Bowl Championship Series conference, the Broncos rightfully earned a place in a BCS game.

"Boise State is not a bad team," third-team All-America linebacker Rufus Alexander said. "They're a good team. They've won games. They've shown they can beat good teams. If we take them lightly, they'll show they can beat us, so we've got to go out there and fight."

Added Stoops: "I'll promise you as a team, our players and coaches, we've got great respect for Boise. You watch them on tape, they're a very good football team in everything they do. Very disciplined. Play hard, play sure of themselves. They've got a lot of ability."

Oklahoma's schedule this season included seven bowl-bound opponents and marquee college football names like Oregon, Texas, Texas A&M and Nebraska, while Boise State hasn't played a ranked team. The biggest names on the Broncos' schedule were Oregon State, Hawaii (which eventually did crack the top 25), Utah and Fresno State.

But Stoops said the focus shouldn't be on whom Boise State has, or hasn't, played. It should be on the Broncos' level of talent, which he said is outstanding.

"I was talking to someone ... who's a close friend of mine who was visiting with pro scouts," Stoops said. "(Boise State) had pro scouts in there watching them just a week or two ago, and they were watching 10 different players that they're evaluating for this year's draft.

"The media doesn't sit and study 12 football games and what they do. When you watch the discipline, how hard they've played, the talent that's there and the way they play, it's easy to respect them. And we do."

If Stoops wanted, he could also point out that the Sooners won't be the only team in the Fiesta Bowl to have won multiple national championships. Oklahoma claims seven titles in NCAA Division I-A, but Boise State won the 1958 National Junior College Athletic Association title and the 1980 NCAA Division I-AA title before moving to Division I-A in 1996.

Then there's the brief history of non-BCS conference schools in BCS games. Utah of the Mountain West Conference capped an undefeated 2004 season with a 35-7 thumping of Big East Conference champion Pittsburgh in the 2005 Fiesta Bowl.

"If we go in taking these guys lightly, we'll get run out of the building," Oklahoma quarterback Paul Thompson said. "We have to go in with our mind-set as it should be: We're playing against an undefeated team, a top-10 team in the country and we'll be in a BCS bowl game on national television.

"We don't want to go out there and embarrass ourselves or put ourselves in a situation where we don't respect them and then we come up short."

So what would the Sooners gain from a win over Boise State?

"In the end, we have an opportunity to win another football game," Stoops said. "What are we, 11-2? So we've got a chance to be 12-2. That's what matters to us and we're going to do our best to get ourselves ready to do that."

A win would also provide a positive coda to the career of fifth-year seniors like Alexander, who have been on Oklahoma squads that have played in each of the four BCS games — the Rose, Sugar, Orange and Fiesta. The Sooners are 1-2 so far in those games.

"We have a lot of tradition here," Alexander said. "We have a lot to fight for. We have a lot to stand for. For people to say that we don't have nothing to win this game and everything to lose is wrong."