One loss each. No questions asked.
Florida and Oklahoma each won their conference title games Saturday to virtually assure themselves a showdown for the national championship on Jan. 8 — a matchup hardly anyone outside of Texas can argue with.
“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 just like Tebow — led No. 4 Oklahoma to a 62-21 victory over Missouri to take the Big 12. The Sooners set an NCAA record by scoring 60-plus for five straight games.
“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 Sunday, 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 the best teams ever. Their scoring defense is ranked fourth in the nation, one notch below 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, however, 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 Bob Stoops’ team doesn’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.”
Stoops is slated to go against the school where he became a bona fide coaching star. He was Steve Spurrier’s defensive coordinator at Florida from 1996-1998. The next year, he left for Oklahoma, and when Spurrier left for the NFL in 2002, Stoops was the top guy on Florida’s list.
Many in Gainesville were sure he’d come back, underestimating — or maybe forgetting — about the powerhouse program Oklahoma had once been and could become again. Stoops decided there was no better job than the one he had, leading a program with seven national titles, including the one he won in 2000.
The Gators hired Ron Zook, then a few years later, brought in Urban Meyer, who is trying to bring Florida’s title total to three.
It will be a classic matchup between two storied programs, and maybe it will provide a rare, argument-free ending to the season.
College football’s stubborn refusal to introduce a playoff system often results in controversy and arguments, especially when there are several title-worthy teams with one loss, as is the case this year: Florida, Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, Texas Tech, Southern California, Penn State.
But most of this year’s BCS drama came last week when Oklahoma won the Big 12 South tiebreaker over Texas and Texas Tech to earn the spot in the conference title game. OU lost to Texas by 10 and beat Texas Tech by 44, but Texas Tech beat Texas by six to create a three-way logjam that had to be broken by the final step in the tiebreaker process — the teams’ standings in the BCS.
Oklahoma won the tiebreaker. Texas protested.
“But that day has come and gone,” Palm said. “The reality is that Oklahoma is the conference championship and they belong in Miami.”
Other teams thought to have an outside shot at a spot in the BCS game were Alabama, in case of a super-close loss to Florida. But the Tide knows that dream is over now.
“I felt like we had our shot and it didn’t work out,” Alabama center Antoine Calswell said.
Fifth-ranked USC also was viewed as having an outsider’s chance. But a 28-7 win over UCLA on Saturday hardly helped the Trojans.
“Maybe if they could have transposed the number they scored — 82 would have been much better than 28,” Palm said. “But even that probably wouldn’t have been enough.”
The Trojans won the Pac-10 and are assured of their third straight “trip” to the Rose Bowl, where they’ll play Big Ten champion Penn State.
Alabama is a likely Sugar Bowl team, with undefeated outsider Utah the Tide’s probable opponent.
The Longhorns are likely headed to the Fiesta to play Ohio State.
And that would leave the Orange Bowl with ACC champ Virginia Tech against Big East champ Cincinnati.
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