Weekly Affirmation - Gators v. Sooners

The BCS title game, plus other bowl previews, in the season finale of this year’s column.

By Matthew Zemek
 


Perspective on Florida-Oklahoma: Already Awakened Echoes

Say what you want about its (BCS) legitimacy; fair or foul, the matchup between Florida and Oklahoma isn’t just a battle worthy of deciding the national championship of college football. This confrontation, with all its constitutive elements, represents a sportswriter’s dream. A fabulous pairing provides several sexy and significant storylines that will add weight to an already hefty occasion.

Go to the thematic buffet table. Graze all day and pick from the dozens of platters loaded with tasty pigskin offerings. Yes, the game on the field might not satisfy, but before the kickoff of this collision, it will be impossible to go hungry as you look for a delicious piece of drama. Any serious sports fan will find some way to care about Gators-Sooners, and that’s the truest test of any sporting event’s ability to leave an imprint on the public memory. Those who are unfamiliar with college football will find a reason to relish this showdown and find a reason to pull for one team over the other.

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Craving the inside scoop at Oklahoma? Check out Sooners Illustrated on the Scout network for the latest news and recruiting rumblings.

If you like family dramas, consider the Bob Stoops story framing this fistfight. Stoops was Steve Spurrier’s defensive coordinator on Florida’s first national championship team in 1996. When Spurrier abruptly left the Gators in early January of 2002, Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley wanted Stoops to come back to Gainesville, but the Sooner coach—comfortable and ascendant in his seat of authority in Norman—had to say no. Timing is everything in life, and because Spurrier—whose son, Steve Jr., served under Stoops at OU—scratched his NFL itch after Oklahoma’s 2000 national title, “Big Game Bob” didn’t rejoin the Gators. As a result, a key figure in Florida’s first national title will now try to prevent the SEC champions from gaining their third piece of crystal.

If that angle doesn’t excite you, however, maybe the “coordinator about to leave” storyline—sprinkled with a dash of “history repeats itself” seasoning—will catch your interest. In order to understand this particular part of the backdrop to the January joust between two juggernauts, you need to go back to the first time Miami hosted the BCS title tilt.

In January of 2001, a Florida school—Bobby Bowden’s Florida State Seminoles—entered Dolphins Stadium as a favorite against No.1 Oklahoma in that year’s Orange Bowl. Entering the contest, it had already been announced that FSU offensive coordinator Mark Richt was going to take the Georgia job. Yet, Richt was allowed to stay on and call plays from the booth. It wasn’t the first time such a scenario unfolded, nor was it the last.

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Craving the inside scoop at Florida? Check out Fightin'Gators.com on the Scout network for the latest news and recruiting rumblings.

Such a circumstance is fraught with peril, because the cloud of conflicting emotions and muddied loyalties can easily cast a pall over the rest of the proceedings. Sure enough, FSU’s high-powered offense not only struggled, but failed to register a single point, as an Oklahoma miscue gave the Seminoles a lonely safety. The Sooners’ 13-2 win, achieved without any appreciable production from their own formidable offense, represented a shocking outcome not because of the ultimately triumphant team, but because of the utter ineptitude of the Seminoles. While it’s fair to say that Florida State simply didn’t play all that well eight years ago, it’s also reasonable to conclude that Mark Richt—in his decision and in his presence—reshaped the psychological calculus of the game. When a national championship hangs in the balance, changing the mental equation is always a risky proposition.

This year, as college football's title fight comes back to Miami, the same scenario is set to unfold, albeit with a slight twist. Florida is the new Sunshine State power taking on No. 1 Oklahoma in Dolphins Stadium. As was the case in 2001, the Florida school’s offensive coordinator—this time, the Gators’ Dan Mullen—is set to move to his first head coaching job. Like Mark Richt, Mullen will move to an SEC school (Mississippi State). Like Richt, Mullen will stick with the Gators for the title game. The only major difference between Mullen and Richt is that Mullen won’t call plays. That might be a smart move for reasons stated above, but it also needs to be said that Tim Tebow and Mullen have bonded a great deal over the past three seasons. Whether you’re partial to the Gators or not, it would be hard to deny that the best Florida scenario in this game involved Mullen staying on as offensive coordinator in 2009, providing no off-field drama before kickoff. We’ll see how the 2009 BCS Championship Game does or doesn’t replicate the 2001 Orange Bowl.

Still not juiced about this mammoth Miami matchup? Maybe you’ll be intrigued by the “Double Heisman Maneuver” on display when Florida and Oklahoma lock horns (sorry, Texas—had to duck in a reference to this game’s most controversial element at some point along the line…).

If a historical connection to the 2001 Orange Bowl doesn’t float your boat, maybe a linkage to the 2005 Orange Bowl—the last BCS title game played in Miami—will hit your sweet spot. Four years ago, Oklahoma once again made its way to South Beach to tackle the USC Trojans. When those two football powers took the field, they both boasted Heisman Trophy winners, as OU’s Jason White faced SC’s Matt Leinart.

It’s not often that any bowl game is able to bring two gifted gunslingers together. It’s that much more remarkable, then, that a national title tussle—in each of its last two visits to Miami—has been able to put two Heisman hardware holders on the same plot of real estate. White-Leinart ’05 becomes Tim Tebow-Sam Bradford ’09, as the two current Heisman heavyweights will duke it out on January 8. For whatever reason, Miami mojo has managed to offer the mightiest and most mythical matches in the BCS era, offering Oklahoma and its Heisman studs (or runners-up, as in the case of Josh Heupel, Bradford’s quarterback coach) against Florida State, USC, and now Florida. While any national title tilt carries its own singular sizzle, college football’s main event has acquired consistently stratospheric status when staged in one of America’s more exotic metropolitan areas.

Still not excited about Gators-Sooners? You might need to be checked for signs of a pulse at this point, but let’s soldier on and try to win you over with some simpler fare from the buffet line.

The duel between the champions of the SEC and Big 12 will crown college football’s fourth straight national titlist from one of the two leagues. Meyer or Stoops will join the elite fraternity of coaches to win two national crowns. Oklahoma will have a chance to atone for the 55-19 loss to USC that, perhaps more than any other setback in the Stoops era, tarred Stoops’ reputation as a big-game coach. Florida will be trying to become the first team in the 11-season BCS era to win two BCS championships in three years.

History. Heismans. Miami mystery. Stoops and Spurrier family sagas. Offensive coordinators leaving for SEC schools, but sticking around for a title tilt. Tim Tebow’s encounter with gridiron immortality. Oklahoma’s chance for supreme redemption. You name it, Gators-Sooners has a thick slice of tension to suit your gridiron taste buds. It’s true that neither the 2001 or 2005 Orange Bowls delivered games worthy of the national-title-level hype, but going into Florida-Oklahoma 2009, it’s impossible to deny (unless you lack a pulse) that the latest BCS blockbuster has all the ingredients of a classic, enough—at any rate—to make even the most casual fan care about the outcome in one way or another.

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Rose: Don’t expect a typical USC rout of a Big Ten foe, but don’t think that Penn State’s competitiveness means that this year’s Granddaddy is the mother of all New Year’s Day bowl games. Oh, USC-Penn State is a sexy game, but it’s more for the thrill of seeing Pete Carroll and Joe Paterno match wits in college football’s best and most beautiful setting: Pasadena, in the afternoon, on January 1.

These are not the best teams ever assembled by two legendary college football coaches. With respect to Penn State, that’s an easy call, but even then, the 2005 version of the Nittany Lions would have had a better chance of taking down the 2008 Trojans. Austin Scott and Tony Hunt offered a more credible running threat, while then-quarterback Michael Robinson was a more consistent leader. This year’s Lions aren’t chopped liver by any stretch of the imagination, but a cold comparison of JoePa’s last two Big Ten champions would lean toward the 2005 outfit.

As for USC, the Men of Troy are really mighty on defense, but they’ve been markedly inconsistent on offense, so much so that they had to genuinely sweat out close wins against California and Arizona in a down year for the Pac-10. The Trojans fattened up their stats against historically bad Washington schools, and loaded up their point totals in an outstanding season opener against Virginia, a dominating second half against Oregon, and a devastating fourth quarter at Stanford. In terms of consistency, Mark Sanchez and the rest of SC’s offense have been lacking this season. The ’08 Trojan offense has been relatively similar to the 2007 offense that had its own share of ups and downs, but when one considers the injuries that befell USC a year ago, this season’s offense hasn’t lived up to its potential.

Another reason to wonder about USC’s offensive output in the Rose Bowl is the fact that—like Florida and Dan Mullen against Oklahoma—the Trojans will have a lame-duck offensive coordinator in the fold. Steve Sarkisian has begun to hit the recruiting trail for Washington, but he’ll be on the sidelines when the run for the Roses begins in the shadows of the San Gabriel Mountains.

It would be hard to deny that USC’s better offensive years came under the watch of Norm Chow and Lane Kiffin. Yes, Sarkisian—to his great credit—has sustained the run of Pac-10 titles and 11-win seasons in L.A., but in comparison with previous coordinators, Sark hasn’t quite matched the lofty standards set earlier this decade. With his departure only a matter of time, one has to wonder about the cohesiveness—and the fire—that will come from the offensive side of the Trojan Empire in Pasadena. When one then considers the togetherness of Penn State’s defensive braintrust—led by longtime JoePa associate Tom Bradley—it’s reasonable to think that SC’s hot-and-cold crew will be contained by the Lions over four quarters.

Therefore, one should expect a close game in this year’s Rose Bowl. Just don’t assume a close game to mean that Penn State and USC are worthy of national title consideration. It’s a blessing that USC’s offense doesn’t have to go to the Superdome against Alabama. Similarly, Penn State has a better chance of bringing glory to the Big Ten by playing in Pasadena, rather than in Glendale or Miami against a Big 12 or SEC school.

Fiesta: Think of this game as a rich man’s version of the Sugar Bowl. There’s a very simple reason for such a statement. Whereas Alabama-Utah is all about “the grumble factor,” otherwise known as a question about a team’s motivation level in a game it would have preferred to avoid, Texas-Ohio State offers that same scenario on a higher level. It’s one thing for Alabama to lament being in New Orleans and not Miami after losing to Florida in the SEC title game. It’s another thing for Texas—without a late-season loss—to miss the BCS Championship challenge only because of decimal points and computer chips. The Longhorns—far more than the Crimson Tide—face a real fight-or-flight moment, an occasion when their level of commitment will receive more than a little scrutiny. Unlike Utah, Ohio State has the assemblage of athleticism and talent needed to knock Texas into next Tuesday… if, of course, Mack Brown’s boys are sulking and sagging. Bowl games offer great psychological case studies, and the Fiesta Bowl is the best such example in this year’s set of BCS battles.

Poinsettia: ”He Went to Jared” is not just a slogan for a jewelry store. It’s the key to the best December bowl game, which doubles as the best matchup of non-BCS conference teams this bowl season. “He” is Boise State quarterback Kellen Moore, a freshman who will face the toughest test of his young and very promising career when he stares down TCU’s defense in San Diego. “Jared” is former Boise State quarterback Jared Zabransky, the man who—with Ian Johnson, Drisan James, Jerard Rabb, Vinny Perretta, and countless others who earned a piece of Idaho immortality—took down Oklahoma in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl. The reason why TCU ought to be favored in this game is that Moore is only beginning to develop as a signal caller. Pick-sixes and shaky moments have kept Boise from being even better in 2008. Yes, that’s admittedly a nit-picky statement to make, but it’s not untrue. The unbeaten Broncos would have sweated less against Nevada, and packed more of a punch against San Jose State and Hawaii, had Moore brought a better fastball to the foray. Against Gary Patterson’s powerful Purple pass rushers—led by Jerry Hughes—Moore will have less time in which to make proper decisions under fire. It’s a big ask to expect the freshman to foil the Frogs.

For an added piece of perspective on this game, pop Zabransky into the equation.

Before Jared jolted Oklahoma in one of college football’s greatest games, it’s very instructive to note that, in the 2005 season opener, the big man on the Boise campus failed miserably in a 48-13 loss at Georgia. Zabransky was so shaken by his four-interception performance that he sought a sports psychologist and spent considerable time rebuilding his mental approach to the sport. All in all, this Jared didn’t become a sparkling diamond in a big game until he experienced a punch in the mouth. The Georgia loss provided the sobering setback that enabled Zabransky to bring his best against Oklahoma on that unforgettable night in suburban Phoenix.

When Kellen Moore sizes up TCU in the Poinsettia Bowl, he’ll need to channel his inner Zabransky if Boise is to make another noisy statement about its college football credentials. If one quarterback can find the uncommon poise that Jared Zabransky discovered in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, the Broncos will notch their second perfect season (bowl game included) in three years. If not, San Diego will be colored purple two nights before Christmas.