We are the champions (again)

Congratulations to the University of Florida football team for winning its second BCS championship in three seasons with a 24-14 victory over the Oklahoma Sooners. After having won back-to-back men’s basketball championships (2006-07) as well, it is definitely great to be a Florida Gator. So great, in fact, that I didn’t dare seem over-excited about yet another chance to win a championship for fear that the sports gods would reckon me a glutton and revoke their favor.

After the game, I turned the channel from Fox, which broadcasted the game it its characteristically inept and uninformed manner, to ESPN to catch what the talking heads had to say, and I was a little struck by how little folks had to say about the Gator defense. A lot of talk about UF quarterback Tim Tebow and running back/wide receiver Percy Harvin – both of whom played very well – but the game was won by Florida’s defense.

UF’s opponent led the country in scoring offense. In fact, no team in the history of college football had ever scored more points in a season (of course, we play more games today than they used to) than Oklahoma this year. A whopping 700+ points this year! OU’s offense managed only 14 against the Gators.

On the defensive unit, the real standouts were the secondary players, which just three short months ago seemed like the team’s Achilles heel, especially after Ole Miss’s Jevon Snead hooked up with Shay Hodge for an 86-yard touchdown, beating an out-of-position safety for the winning score to give Florida its lone loss of the season. That was on top of a woeful 2007 for the defensive secondary, which was, at the time, green and overmatched in several games.

Not so last night.

From safety Major Wright’s jaw-crushing hit on Oklahoma’s Manny Johnson in the first quarter to cornerback Joe Haden’s break-up of OU’s last gasp, the secondary was the difference. All season long, Oklahoma had thrived on yards after catch, or so-called YAC, the ability to turn safe, short passes into giant gains. By physically matching up with the Sooner receivers and by tackling them once they caught the ball, Florida put OU into the strange position of having to mount long drives to score points, and as we all know, in college football, the longer the drive, the greater the opportunity to screw things up. Like blowing a few blocking assignments on third and fourth downs inside the five-yard line. Like throwing a pick at the goal line in the first half’s final seconds. Like having a field-goal attempt blocked. Absent its big-play ability, Oklahoma simply couldn’t get out of its own way.

This was hugely important because, on both sides of the ball and especially in the game’s first half, OU pretty well dominated the line of scrimmage. Until late in the game, OU held an advantage in rushing yardage and was able to pressure Tebow enough to force some errant throws (Tebow threw two interceptions in the first half – he had thrown two all season). Maybe it was that line-of-scrimmage advantage that gave the Sooners a false sense of security that they could pound the football when they really needed to, but as things worked out, when it came time to turn yards and brawn into points, the Sooners came up short. And by the time the halftime adjustments were made, the Sooners’ clear advantage on the line of scrimmage was suddenly less evident.

But before then, when the Florida front seven on defense were struggling, the secondary kept the Gators in the game, making play after play, limiting the big gains, and providing solid support versus the run.

Of the OU receivers, only tight end Jermaine Gresham consistently gave the Gator defense fits, but once defensive coordinator Charlie Strong rotated safeties, rather than linebackers, across from Gresham, UF at least kept the damage to a minimum. Gresham still caught eight passes for 62 yards and scored both Sooner touchdowns.

After the game, as ESPN’s talking heads took the measure of the game, Gameday host Chris Fowler kept prompting his colleagues not to forget the UF defense. They would give a few kudos before shifting the conversation to Tebow and Harvin, but Fowler was right – the Gator defense, particularly the secondary, was the key.