Who's the BCS Champ? Flori-Duh

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)

Game!? What game?

ESPN's talking heads are lounging in Miami analyzing every aspect of tomorrow's college football title bout between Florida and Oklahoma. But columnist everywhere don't seem to care. They've already crowned a champion.

Rick Reilly says the undefeated Utah Utes (13-0) are national champions, because the BCS has no credibility. The End.

Yahoo's Dan Wetzel writes that Utah can score and tackle with anyone, but was cursed by lack of overall attention. "ESPN, the 800-pound gorilla of college football hype, is notorious for promoting the games and teams that it broadcasts. This past season that meant lots of Big 12 talk."

And then there's John Feinstein who in an open letter to the 65 members of the media who vote in the AP Poll, implores them to cast their final ballot of the season with one team and one only team ranked No. 1: the University of Utah.

So does anyone care there's a game tomorrow night?

I for one will be watching, and I think Sportsline's Dennis Dodd will be too.

After all, Dodd summed up the Sooners-Gators battle into one succinct matchup. Take a look...