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NCAA College Football 2008-09 Final Top 25
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NCAA College Football Top 25 - Final
Rick Gagliano | Through games of January 8, 2009
--- Fiinal Notes below ---
Florida Earned It, Deserves It!
When Tim Tebow led the Florida Gators 76 yards in 13 plays for their third touchdown of the game, culminating in a 4-yard TD pass to David Nelson, the rest of the world finally realized what Tebow and his teammates knew all along: that the Florida Gators are the best college football team in the nation.
After the mandatory Gatorade drenching of coach Urban Meyer, the clock wound to 00:00 and the final score said it all: Gators 24 Sooners 14.
It wasn't the prettiest game of the season for either team, as two of the best QBs in the country - Tebow and Oklahoma's Sam Bradford - combined for four touchdown passes and an equal amount of interceptions. Both Tebow and Bradford threw two of each, which was on the low side for TDs, but off the scale on picks. Tebow matched his total for the entire season, while Bradford, blessed with the most accurate arm seen in college in many seasons, was the victim of a couple of bad bounces and great plays by the Florida secondary.
While the buildup for the game was probably bigger than the actual play on the field, the Gators were clearly the superior team in the second half, and, from the looks of it, if these two titans of turf were to play another 10 times, Florida would probably win eight of them.
The loss marked a low point for Sooners' coach Bob Stoops, who has now dropped five straight bowl games. That puts the Sooners on the same list as the Ohio State Buckeyes: Big-game losers who don't deserve another shot. There was trouble with how Oklahoma even got into this game, having lost to Texas on a neutral site by 10 points, so the cries of "foul" are certain to be coming from the Longhorn faithful.
Texas, or USC or even Utah may have given the Gators a better game, but since the BCS is all that the conference chiefs are going to allow, that's what we've got, and there's no reason to deny the Florida kids their moments in the sun. That they were the best team in the country may not have been crystal clear - The Longhorns and Trojans also finished up with just one loss and Utah went undefeated - but their determination to overwhelm Oklahoma and deny them the end zone with two brilliant defensive stands, earned them bragging rights, and, oh yes, that pretty crystal football they like to call a trophy.
There actually emerged a way to decipher the entire mess that the BCS created. Florida lost only one game, by one point, on a blocked extra point, to Mississippi, who thoroughly hammered the one team that beat Texas: the Texas Tech Red Raiders, routing them 47-34 in the Cotton Bowl. So, give the Gators a leg up on that score. Also, the Longhorns just barely escaped defeat at the hands of Ohio State in the Fiesta, winning 24-21 on a final drive with seconds remaining, but the Buckeyes aren't a bad team, and they'll be better next season.
USC's lone loss was on the road, at Oregon State, and while the Trojans beat Penn State pretty solidly in the Rose Bowl, the Beavers slugged it out with the Pitt Panthers in the season's ugliest game, a 3-0 Sun Bowl win by Oregon State. Still, the Trojans dispelled any doubt that they were a title contender. Both they and Texas deserved a better shot than they received.
That leaves the question of Utah, the only undefeated team in the country. The Utes overwhelmed Alabama, 31-17, in the Sugar, but the Gators also beat back the Tide in the SEC Championship. That doesn't prove anything except that Utah can play with the big boys, as a courageous Boise State did a few years back. So, despite some minor misgivings, I'll agree with the BCS this time that the Gators are #1, but Utah, USC and Texas all tied for #2 in my mind.
If we need a national champion every year (we don't, but Americans being Americans demand finality in their sporting events), the BCS has to come up with a better format. The argument that a playoff system would disrupt the bowl schedule is absolutely without merit. Most of the major bowls were played on the 1st of January, with the national championship a week later.
Now, if the BCS were to take the top four teams at the end of the conference schedules, draw straws for seeding or have 1 play 4 and 2 vs. 3 on January 1st, with the winners advancing to the national title game roughly a week later, the only argument would come from the teams finishing 5th or 6th.
Even then, a four-team playoff would involve just one extra game for the ultimate national championship winners and losers and might actually quiet the din of derision that routinely follows every college football season.
That's a discussion for the Spring and Summer. For now, it's a Gator Nation!
-- Fearless Rick 
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