Then There Were 2 – Oklahoma vs. Florida for BCS Title
Two former Bowl Championship Series winners steeped in tradition will meet on Jan.8 in South Florida to decide what school reigns supreme in the BCS’s 11th year.
Florida, the Southeastern Conference champ, and Oklahoma, the Big 12 top dog, are powerhouses on offense.
The Sooners rank No. 1 in scoring, averaging 54 points a game. The Gators are third, averaging 45.2 points.
Both teams are among college’s passing elite. Oklahoma is first, scoring 49 touchdowns through the air, with quarterback Sam Bradford accounting for all but one.
Bradford, third individually, has averaged 10.1 yards per pass. He threw six of the team’s seven interceptions en route to a 12-1 record.
Bradford recently had surgery on the left thumb of his non-throwing hand to repair torn ligaments suffered in the first quarter of Oklahoma’s thrashing of Missouri in the Big 12 title game for the second consecutive year. He should be ready to take snaps in practice well before the BCS face-off.
Florida is fifth in passing, with 31 touchdowns. Quarterback Tim Tebow accounted for 28 of those scores and was intercepted only twice. He averaged 9.4 yards a throw as the Gators won 12 of 13 games.
Both teams average 14.3 yards a reception.
Neither team slacks off when it comes to ground attacks. Florida ranks ninth, averaging six yards a carry, with 41 TDs. Oklahoma is 12th, averaging 4.8 yards, but scored 45 times.
Defense is another matter. The Gators are fifth in points allowed:
12.8. The Sooners are 57th as opponents scored an average 24.5 points a game. Florida is second in interceptions with 24, running back five for scores. Oklahoma is 15th picked, picking off 17 passes, but none were returned for a TD.
The Gators allowed an average of 105.3 yards rushing each game while the Sooners gave up 106 yards. Florida limited opponents to 179 yards a game, but Oklahoma yielded 319 yards.
In the final BCS standings, the Sooners advanced to No. 1 because Florida dethroned Alabama. That victory vaulted the Gators over Texas to No. 2. However, Florida jumped to the top of the Associated Press poll ahead of Oklahoma.
During the BCS years, there has been a split national championship once: LSU won the first of two BCS titles in 2003 while the University of Southern California was ranked No. 1 by AP and the Football Writers Association of America.
No. 1 holds a 6-4 edge over No. 2 in BCS title games, winning the first four. No. 2 Ohio State nipped No. 1 University of Miami in two overtimes, 31-24, for the ’02 championship at the Orange Bowl before it became a stand-alone event four years later.
Second-ranked teams pulled upsets the past three years:
Texas nipped USC, 41-38, in ’05; the Gators crushed the Buckeyes, 41-14, in ’06; and LSU beat Ohio State, 38-24, last year.
Florida’s Urban Meyer was the third coach in history to take a second-ranked squad to victory against the AP’s top team two years ago. Meyer has the second best winning percentage among active coaches with five or more seasons at the helm.
Bob Stoops, in his 10th season with the Sooners, is 6-1 in Big 12 championship games. But he is 1-2 in BCS title contests: Oklahoma wore the ’00 crown after defeating Florida State, 13-2, but lost two years in a row, 21-14 to LSU in ’03 and 55-19 to USC in ’04.
