One thing is certain after the BCS national championship, the media loves a good pun. From “Chompions” to “Gators take a bite...” puns sprung up “Sooners rather than later”.
To give credit where credit is due, Real Clear Sports blogger Robbie Gillies came up with the title for this post. There's a few more good puns to check out.
What's not certain following Florida's 24-14 win over No. 1 Oklahoma is which school can claim they are college football's true champion. Sure, the Gators are the BCS champions, but a handful of other schools have legitimate gripes.
The game itself was sloppy and choppy, but one glaring thing stood out. Sooners coach nicknamed “Big Game Bob Stoops” continues to suffer paralysis in the biggest games. Again, when it mattered most Stoops mentally imploded.
It's not as if Oklahoma failed to show up as Sportsline's Gregg Doyel writes. The Sooners had ample chances to bury the Gators in the first half, but questionable, conservative play calling doomed OU in a pair of red-zone visits.
Then in the second half, Oklahoma failed to exploit its main advantage. You can blame the coaching staff. The Sooners huge, NFL-caliber offensive line was limited to just pass blocking. OU didn't stick with a ground game, netting just 107 yards.
Oklahoma is now 2-5 in the BCS under Bob Stoops. It's unbelievable they've made seven BCS trips, including four to titles games, but in these situations too often Stoops has called plays not to lose the game rather than call plays to win the game. It's inexplicable that the Sooners didn't continue to pound the ball at Florida. OU failed to play football at its best.
The Gators won the BCS title game as much as the Sooners lost the game.
So who really should be No. 1? We can all talk until we're blue in the face, but who knows for sure. Here's my final rankings, with style-points deducted for jump passes.
1. Utah (13-0)
2. Florida (13-1)
3. USC (12-1)
4. Texas (12-1)
5. Oklahoma (12-2)
6. Penn State (11-2)
7. TCU (11-2)
8. Alabama (12-2)
9. Ohio State (10-3)
10. Texas Tech (11-2)
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Next In: Oregon (10-3)
1 comment:
When thinking about the OU implosion after the game at midnight ET last Thursday I came up with a fine explanation for their defeat. First, let me say for any Florida fans who might come across this comment, I don't think that Tim Tebow just swooped down from the heavens to spend a little time with us lesser folks en route to a second national title. No, clearly OU lost the game. They had a chance to go into the half leading 21-7 but thanks to the incredible ineptitude of Bob Stoops and the offensive coaches at OU they went in with only 7. I could credit Florida's incredible ability to stop three identical 1st and goal from the 1 plays up the middle, but that's nonsense. I'm still so angry I can't write about it.
On another note, Tim Tebow is a bigger system QB than Timmy Chang. Congrats.
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