Gators, Sooners make their cases
One loss each. No questions asked.
Florida and Oklahoma each won their conference title games Saturday to nearly assure themselves a showdown for the national championship on Jan. 8 – a matchup with which hardly anyone outside of Texas can argue.
“After what happened tonight, I would go so far as to say Texas doesn’t have much of an argument, either,” said Jerry Palm, the BCS analyst and blogger.
Led by Tim Tebow, No. 2 Florida defeated top-ranked Alabama 31-20 to win the Southeastern Conference.
Later, Sam Bradford – a top Heisman contender with Tebow – led No. 4 Oklahoma to a 62-21 victory over Missouri to take the Big 12. The Sooners became the first team to score 60-plus for five straight games in 89 years.
“I don’t see how we could not be No. 1 tomorrow,” Bradford said.
Barring some kind of computer meltdown when the final BCS rankings come out today, the Gators (12-1) will be ranked second, paired against the top-ranked Sooners (12-1) for the championship game in Miami.
Call it the Unstoppable Force vs. the Unstoppable Force: Oklahoma’s offense is ranked first in the nation in scoring and set the NCAA record for points in a season (702). Florida’s offense averaged more than 49 points over the last nine games.
The point spread won’t come out until the game is officially set. But chances are that over-under number will be a big ’un.
“Oklahoma puts up basketball scores with that offense. It’s ridiculous how in sync that offense is,” Palm said. “Florida is going to need to score a lot of points to beat them. But Florida can score a lot of points.”
Had Florida not had a late extra point blocked in a 31-30 loss to Mississippi in September, Tebow and the Gators might be a win away from joining the debate as possibly one of history’s best teams. Their scoring defense is ranked fourth in the nation, one notch less than their scoring offense.
Had the Sooners not had a bad day in a 45-35 loss to Texas in October, they might be part of the same argument.
Both teams got second chances, and both took advantage.
Florida won its next eight games by an average score of 52-12 and moved to No. 4 in the BCS standings. With a convincing-enough win over the top-ranked Crimson Tide, the Gators are all but assured to jump ahead at least two spots.
“I don’t want to jinx us, but we just beat the No. 1 team in the country,” Florida receiver Riley Cooper said, figuring the invite to the title game is all but a formality at this point.
Likewise, it’s hard to argue that the Sooners don’t belong.
“We were kind of tired listening to everyone talk about how we didn’t deserve to be in this game, and not really giving us a lot of credit for what we did this year,” Bradford said. “So we wanted to come into this game and make a statement.”