That's it. That's all she wrote for the 2008 college football season. Now that Florida's players have put their lip-prints all over the Waterford crystal football, we can go into our deep winter depression over the lack of college football for another offseason. We're waiting for the "blahs" to hit at any moment. But don't worry, time will pass, we will heal and before you know it we'll be ready to kick off another season of our beloved sport.
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| Life is good for Joe Haden or anybody else in Gator orange and blue. (US Presswire) |
Lesson 1
OK, OK, I'll be the corny one to say it. But it's true, as the student section in the Swamp likes to chant, it's great to be a Florida Gator.
These are heady times for the Gator Nation. Let's add it up. With Thursday night's 24-14 win over Oklahoma, that's two of the past three national championships in college football. Toss in the fact that they've also won two of the past three national titles in basketball and you've got four high-profile sports winning the brass ring. (Are we sure they didn't win a bowling or rifle national title somewhere along the way too?)
Lesson 1A
We learned how to take the postgame news conference as a PR tool to a new level.
Proving the point that it's great to be a Florida Gator, coach Urban Meyer said in the postgame news conference, "You've gotta be out of your frickin' mind not to come play for Florida." Nice. And why not? You've got the entire football nation's attention. Might as well change a few recruits' minds while you're there.
Lesson 2
Sure Tim Tebow did his Superman act again, but let's face it, we found out that the reason Florida beat Oklahoma was because of ... conditioning.
Sure sounds simple doesn't it? But Florida was in better shape than OU. It was the one off-the-radar stat that seemed to make the biggest difference in the BCS title game and the fact is Florida wore down OU as the game went on. For the game, Tebow and Co. had a 10-minute edge in possession, 11 minutes coming in the fourth quarter. That 6-minute, 52-second drive to salt away the win was the biggest. In that drive, Tebow went 6-for-6 for 76 yards, capped by the quite Tebow-esque jump pass to David Nelson.
Lesson 3
We discovered that it's good to score when you're in the red zone.
This was the stat of the game. OU made it down inside the Florida 10-yard line three times in the first half (once on a Jermaine Gresham catch at the 5, but was nullified by penalty) and came away with zero points. Florida got pushed around a little bit in the first half but bowed their necks at critical times on defense and then went 1-for-1 on offense in their own red zone opportunities. Then, in the second half, they went 3-for-3 in the Sooner red zone, and that was all she wrote.
Lesson 3A
We learned that the second-biggest stat of the night was on third down.
Tebow and Co. were 12-for-17 on third-down conversions. OU was 6-for-13.
Lesson 4
Now we see why college football fans everywhere wish pro football would've been the more popular sport back in the '20s and '30s.
Because our college game was so popular back in those days and pro football was such a WNBA-like backburner sport, city administrators in Pasadena, Calif., thought a football game between college teams would be a good way to entice people to take a midwinter vacation to their Tournament of Roses festivities. Thus, in 1903, the bowl games had begun and in 1923, the first true Rose Bowl was played in the stadium that bears the name. In the '30s, the Orange, Sugar and Cotton would join in with the college football idea and the Chamber of Commerce raid began. Had pro football been the more popular sport, then who knows, maybe the NFL would be decided by a popularity contest instead of playoffs.
Instead, because the bowls had the idea of these postseason games first, we're stuck with them. Great. Just great.
Lesson 5
Those 16 Associated Press voters were right, Utah should be the national champion.
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Threads BCS Title Game thread Congrats to the Gators Tebow = G.O.A.T.? SEC takes three straight! Sooner fans eat crow Florida D-E-F-E-N-S-E Message Boards Florida | Oklahoma | CFB Groups Florida | Oklahoma | CFB Blog JEagle87: BCS needs a fix |
Go ahead, complain, whine and give that holier-than-thou big conference snub, but this is so easy a caveman could do it. Florida beat Alabama by 11, Utah beat the Tide by 14. Florida needed a fourth-quarter comeback. Utah just needed the first quarter to prove it was superior. Florida gave up 323 yards to 'Bama's offense. Utah only gave up 208. Florida has a loss on its home field to a four-loss football team. Utah is unbeaten. Do the math people. And if you're one of those "the season is a playoff" simpletons, well, there's your undefeated champion too. Jack Black no talk back.
Lesson 6
While we're on the subject, we found out that this whole "speed of the SEC" talk can finally be put to rest.
Utah? Yes, the Utes made Alabama look like it was running through syrup. And did you catch the South Carolina-Iowa game? Yep, same thing. Oklahoma matched Florida pretty well in the speed category as well. If anything, the speed of Tebow's brain was the big difference in that game as the Uber-QB made great decisions in the second half against that very fleet-of-foot Sooner D.
So let's just go ahead and rephrase it, the speed of the SEC is good. Now, the speed of Florida 2008 or LSU in 2007? Yes, it is ungodly good. But it's time to quit discounting the speed of other teams simply by geography.
Lesson 7
The biggest waste of time and money -– besides the pregame flyover -– is the use of a corporate blimp at games that are played indoors.
Call me crazy, but I don't need an overhead shot of the Superdome while the Sugar Bowl is going on inside from a blimp hovering 1,000 feet above the ground. Just don't need it.
Lesson 8
You can't beat the second-best team from the Big Ten on a last-second touchdown and expect to get enough support to be voted No. 1 in the polls.
Post-bowl campaigning is always one of the more pathetic things of any bowl season. Sure it's usually warranted, but it's mostly a shame it has to happen in the first place. But this is the system we're stuck with.
Still, hearing Texas try to campaign that the 'Horns deserved consideration for No. 1 in the AP poll after the BCS game was done was one of the weakest arguments of all postgame banters. Look, you Big 12 fans spent the whole year bashing the Big Ten and saying how weak it was, but now you want to tell me that beating Ohio State in the last seconds of the game is good enough to put Texas over Utah, Southern California and Florida in the final polls?
Colt McCoy said in the Fiesta Bowl postgame, "I don't know what else we have to do." Here's an idea: Beat the second-best team in the Big Ten by more than three points.
Lesson 9
We found out that 60 Minutes is actually wrong about something (tongue in cheek).
Texas Tech coach Mike Leach being a "genius". If this guy -– and his team -– were so hot, they wouldn't have given up a country mile worth of yards and 47 points to Ole Miss. Sure, the Raiders had the best season in Tech history and everything, but they were still a rather pedestrian top 15 team at best. With that in mind, Leach should pull a real genius move and get a job at a school he can actually win a national title at.
And while we're on the subject, why is it we give this "genius" label to coaches like Leach, Charlie Weiss and Mark Mangino who have never actually played the game? Stop it now national media.
Lesson 10
We found out why that Fox/BCS contract can't end quickly enough.
Like the rich kid wearing an ascot trying to fit in with the greasers and their hot rods, this is still an NFL network trying to look cool by televising college championship games. I listened to most of the first quarter of the BCS title game on ESPN radio with Brent Musburger and Kirk Herbstreit calling the action. And to compare their description of the game with Fox TV's Thom Brennaman and Charles Davis was like comparing Cajun food to the lunches they served in Shawshank Redemption.
While Herbstreit talked about the OU safeties crowding the line and how that caused problems for Tebow and how Florida would have to counteract that with some downfield passes to help loosen up the running game, Brennaman and Davis were talking about the difference in the "horse-collar" rule in pro and college and pointing out how every time Tebow pumps his fist or waves his arm, he proves what a great leader he is.
Lesson 10A
We discovered five more reasons Fox shouldn't broadcast the BCS bowl games:
- If you don't televise college football games during the season, you shouldn't be allowed to do it for the most important games of the postseason.
- It's difficult to watch Chris Rose, Barry Switzer and Jimmy Johnson try to be college football journalists.
- The promos for the Fox network TV shows was overkill.
- Chris Meyers as a sideline reporter just isn't the same as Erin Andrews, Bonnie Bernstein or Lisa Salters.
- The "Bowl Bash on Fox"? What advertising hack came up with that third-grader name?
Lesson 11
Bowl games are still freak shows.
Bowl victories rarely go to the better team per se. They usually go to the more motivated team. Look people, we're still talking about a process that takes teams that are in a groove and on a roll at the end of the regular season, asks them to sit on their hands for four or five weeks and expect them to get back up for a game again. Nineteen- to 22-year-olds can't keep up intensity and concentration after that long of a layoff.
That's why you saw so many false starts, missed assignments and sloppy play in that championship game Thursday. It's almost like the start of another season. And it's also another giant warp in the way to decide a national champion.
OK, that's it. I'm going back into my college football cocoon for now. See you in eight months.
