Thursday night we get the two best teams in college football, at least according to some computers and a bunch of voters, playing in Miami for the BCS championship. The matchup I’d like to see- Oklahoma’s offense against USC’s defense- obviously isn’t possible. But knowing what we know from the bowl games already played, consider the 8-team playoff field that I called for prior to the bowl season:
#8 Utah @ #1 Florida
#7 Texas Tech @ #2 Oklahoma
#6 Penn State @ #3 Texas
#5 Alabama @ #4 USC
Assuming the higher seeds won, that would have given us the following Semifinals:
#1 Florida vs. #4 USC
#3 Texas vs. #2 Oklahoma
The four outcome variations for the final would then obviously be:
Florida vs. Texas or
Florida vs. Oklahoma or
Texas vs. USC or
Oklahoma vs. USC
Instead of getting a definitive champion, the best case scenario for the BCS this year will give us an undefeated team in Utah and three one-loss teams in USC, Texas, and either Florida or Oklahoma.
Getting back to reality, here’s a quick look at some of the season stats for OU-UF:
Oklahoma gets all the pub for the high-powered offense, and rightfully so, but Florida is no slouch ranking 3rd in the nation in scoring. Also of note is that these are the top two teams in the country in terms of turnover ratio.
Looking a little deeper into the statistics:
The push for Oklahoma on defense is going to be to get Florida to pass more than they’d like to and get them out of rhythm. Percy Harvin is allegedly 90% healthy, whatever that means, and the Gators will need him to keep the continuity to the Florida O.
On offense for Oklahoma, the Sooners are going to miss DeMarco Murray badly. They’ve still got playmakers everywhere but Murray is as valuable to the Sooners as Harvin is to the Gators. OU has had plenty of time to gameplan without Murray, but practice and the real thing are two different beasts, especially against the speedy Florida D. It will be fascinating to watch Florida deal with the hurry up offense of the Sooners. We saw what an inability to get subs in did to a team when Ohio State gave up 14 points to Texas in the 3rd quarter of the Fiesta Bowl.
Looking at the last batch of statistics above, the two teams are very similar. Florida has a clear advantage, at least on paper, in red zone defense and field goal percentage, should the game come down to that.
Despite not being the matchup I’d prefer to see, this game is fascinating in so many ways:
**The past two Heisman trophy winners face each other in Tim Tebow and Sam Bradford. I can think of only one other occasion when this happened- ‘04 with Jason White and Matt Leinart (could be wrong there).
**With two high-powered offenses, how many points are going to be scored? The ‘96 Fiesta Bowl featured the most points in any BCS Championship game thus far- 86. Odds are pretty good this game will match or exceed that (the over/under is 72).
**This game features two head coaches that are both from Ohio- Stoops from Youngstown and Meyer from Ashtabula.
Florida is currently favored by 5 and I’m siding with Vegas on this one. As good as both teams are, I think it comes down to defense in special teams and in both of those categories, Florida has the edge.
Final Score:
Florida- 45
Oklahoma- 38
