Sooners fail to show up for national title game

MIAMI -- This is the nicest thing I can say about the Oklahoma Sooners: That couldn't have been them.

That couldn't have been the Sooners. Couldn't have been the team that scored 702 points, won 12 games and earned the Heisman Trophy for quarterback Sam Bradford. Couldn't have been. And that couldn't have been coach Bob Stoops on the sideline, either. No way. Because the team I saw, and the coach I saw, couldn't have scored all those points and won all those games and hauled in that award for Bradford and that acclaim for Stoops. Couldn't have.

The team I saw, the team you saw, the team the world saw, lost the BCS title game 24-14 Thursday night to Florida, and lost it in a ridiculous way.

The Sooners reached the Florida 1-yard line and didn't score a point. They reached the 6 and didn't score. They tried a field goal and didn't get it past the line of scrimmage. They had two interceptions deep in Florida territory, two penalties for 56 yards in field position on the same series by the same player, and an apparently gutless and dirty attack on Florida's Percy Harvin.

This wasn't the Oklahoma team that decimated most of the teams on its schedule. This Oklahoma team, well, I'm going to be honest. I'm not sure this Oklahoma team could have beaten Utah.

And I'm really not crazy about Utah.

About the only thing Oklahoma did at a world-class level in South Florida was run its mouth. Before the game, Oklahoma defensive backs Nic Harris and Dominique Franks called out Harvin and Florida quarterback Tim Tebow. Smart move. Harvin and Tebow were the best two players on the field, and by a large margin. Harvin broke the longest plays of the game, runs of 46 and 52 yards, and finished with 122 yards rushing and 49 yards receiving.

Days before the game, Harris had said of Harvin, "As far as we're concerned, he's just another receiver." Minutes before kickoff, Harris was the idiot acting up at midfield, hooting and hollering and trying his best to psyche out the Gators, I guess. And then in the third quarter Harris got his hands on Harvin -- albeit late, after a 13-yard run that followed a 52-yard run -- and gave Harvin's sore ankle a good tug before letting him up. The crowd saw the replay on the Dolphin Stadium scoreboard and booed in vigilante anger. As well it should. You're a creep, Harris. A loudmouth and a creep.

Tebow, meanwhile, threw for 231 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 109 yards and basically, in the second half, won the football game. After doing his best to protect Tebow all season, and all game, Florida coach Urban Meyer put the game in Tebow's hands by calling for keepers and draws and read-option plays. Meyer basically gambled that Tebow was a good enough player, and a bad enough man, to drag the Gators past Oklahoma and to stay healthy while doing it. And Tebow, because he's Tebow, did just that.

Before the game, Franks had said Tebow wasn't among the best three quarterbacks in the Big 12.

Right.

Bob Stoops' play calling in the red zone didn't help matters. (AP)

Everything about Oklahoma on Thursday was wrong. Even the way the Sooners talked about the game, after it was over, was wrong. Stoops repeatedly said the game came down to "a play or two" and said repeatedly that "we played awfully well." His players hit on those themes as well, and then some. Starting safety Lendy Holmes said Oklahoma "proved to everybody we're no joke. We showed everybody. We're no joke."

He must be joking.

Twice Oklahoma, which scored at least 60 points in each of its last five games, had the ball inside the Florida 10 and scored nothing. On one of them, Stoops called the same basic running play three times in a row, finally on fourth-and-goal from the 1. On another, Bradford forced a pass into about four different Florida defenders, and three of them touched the ball before it was finally intercepted.

Once Oklahoma kicked a field goal -- a long field goal, to be sure -- and didn't get the ball past the defensive front. The Sooners got a free possession in the third quarter when Florida ran into the punter, and Oklahoma gave it back by going three-and-out. Offensive guard Duke Robinson blew up one promising drive by picking up two penalties, one a 15-yard personal foul and another a holding penalty that moved the ball from the Florida 10 back to the Oklahoma 49. That's 56 yards in field position.

And poor Bradford. The coolest quarterback in Oklahoma history lost his poise Thursday night, throwing two interceptions and missing open receivers and getting sacked twice and finally, when he walked off the field for the final time after failing to convert a fourth down in the waning minutes, taking off his helmet and revealing eyes as wide as a barn owl's. The Heisman curse claimed another victim, which was a shock.

This whole night was a shock. Tebow showed beyond a shadow of a doubt that he doesn't have an NFL arm, and still he was the best quarterback on the field, a field that included the current Heisman winner and possible No. 1 overall pick in the upcoming NFL Draft. Harvin chewed up the Oklahoma defense on an ankle that was iffy before kickoff. For a game of this magnitude, the referees were the worst. The Fox telecast, thanks to its exclusion of consistent replays, was a dud.

Florida was great. Florida won the national championship and deserved what it won.

But Oklahoma deserved to lose what it lost. There weren't two winners on that field, just one. One winner, one loser.

The loser wore red.