Sunday Hangover: There Were Playoffs, and Florida and Oklahoma Won

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Like any relationship with two or three, or, to be exact, a Travis Henry-sized 119 suitors, this could have ended quite uncomfortably.

After 15 weeks, hundreds of games and thousands of jabs at the BCS, this college football season could easily finished in an oh-so-ugly breakup. Think Bob Stoops and Mack Brown in the same elevator awkward.

Fortunately , we've got Oklahoma and Florida, two teams with more weapons than Plaxico Burress' waist band.

In the red corner, there's Oklahoma, a team that scores in the 60s more often than half the PGA Tour and, had it not called off the dogs against Kansas State (55 by halftime), Nebraska (49 by halftime), Texas A&M (66 by the end of the third quarter) and Texas A&M (65 with 13:54 left to play), would've scored in the 80s more often than Michelle Wie.

And in the blue corner is Florida, the only team that moves faster than the Oklahoma scoreboard.

But think for a moment If somehow, Oklahoma had lost or simply muddled by Missouri, and if Florida had lost to Alabama because it missed the spark of injured star Percy Harvin. College football's Punxsutawney Phil would've tucked his head back in his hole and we'd be gearing up for another four weeks of BCS controversy.

There would be a month-long debate about how another team backed into the national championship burning up the air waves the way this sentence should be burning Jim Tressel's ears. Imagine the hand-wringing if a team that didn't win its own division earned a spot, or if Alabama beat Florida, but everyone really knew the Gators were a better team when healthy?

(In fairness, Alabama might not have raised much notice, but with marquee wins over Clemson and Georgia dropping in value and a strength of schedule is markedly lower than Utah, the Tide should have.)

Instead of the most anticipated title game of the BCS era, what should have been a made-for-primetime classic could have turned into the football equivalent of an after-school special, forced, full of B-actors and something no one really wanted to see.
So thank you, Oklahoma and Alabama, and please, Gators and Sooners, thank the 170 players that made it happen.

Say thank you, Ole Miss and Texas.

Not because those two teams nearly knocked the Gators and Sooners out of the college football playoffs, but because they put them in the playoffs.

The toughest playoff in sports. The one-loss college football playoffs.


Forget the every-game-is-a-playoff bluff that the BCS probably has printed on its business cards. Only one two-loss team has ever played in a national title and that one needed a final day a loss by West Virginia and a miraculous gift from the voters.

Despite what conference commissioners might tell you, every game may not exactly matter in college football. At least, until you put a mark in the loss column. Then you can forget survive and advance, in the one-loss playoffs, you're playing the game without ever knowing the score.

Think the NFL playoffs are tough? At least pro teams know that if they win they move on. With apologies to Vince Lombardi, in the one-loss college playoffs, winning isn't everything or the only thing, it's half of the equation. Winning, as Texas or USC could tell you, guarantees you only the right to try and put on another perfect performance.

But credit Oklahoma and Florida , not just for emerging, but for becoming better football teams because of it. With their backs against the wall, Oklahoma and Florida didn't merely survive these playoffs, they became the best teams in college football.

Since losing to Ole Miss and Texas, the Gators and Sooners have put on a tandem exhibit of rock 'em, sock 'em football so one-sided that were it Pop Warner football, they would have certainly disqualified themselves from the post-game pizza party with the other team.


In the seven games since tripping against the Longhorns, the Sooners scored at least 45 points in every one and more than 60 in their last five, an NCAA record. They embarrassed Texas Tech by 44 in a game that wasn't even that close. They routed Oklahoma State by 20, the largest winning margin by the Sooners in Stillwater, Okla., in nearly three decades. Against Missouri, even without star running back DeMarco Murray, who left after the opening kickoff, they ran over the Tigers, checked the rear-view mirror, and ran over them again.

By season's end, the Sooners were such an offensive machine that if you had to bet between the sun rising in the general direction of the east and the Sooners topping 60, you'd probably have to play the parlay.

Want defense? Missouri's leading rusher averaged 2.9 yards a carry Saturday night and the team managed just 60 total rushing yards. The Tigers finished with 29.5 yards per possession against the Sooners. By comparison, Alabama managed 32.3 in the supposedly more defensive SEC title game.

Then there's the Gators, a team with so much speed that they probably sit around during the Daytona 500 only to wonder why they never hit high gear. They play like you just hit fast forward on your TiVo. Even Javier Estopinan, their near-300 pound lineman, is rushing for touchdowns. Since that Ole Miss tumble, they've left no question as to who the best team in the SEC is. In fact, in the nine wins since, only one team has stayed within four touchdowns. Only Alabama, who the Gators beat in a hard-nosed game that was fought on a football field but might as well have been in an alley behind a bar, stayed within 11. Vanderbilt, which lost by exactly 28, earns the consolation prize. Four teams didn't even break 10 points against them.

They've done it through the air. They've done it on the ground. They've done it via defense. Think of them as a finesse team if you like, but a finesse team that could step inside an octagon and leave smiling.

So after 15 weeks, these teams will meet in the most anticipated national title game of the BCS era. More impressively, no one, except the city of Austin, will complain. But unfortunately for the Longhorns, 45-35 signs produced and airplane banners aren't yet a BCS component. Beating teams 12 feet into the ground, however, is.

So yeah, Oklahoma and Florida are in the BCS title game with one loss or fewer, the same as eight other teams. But make no mistake, they didn't do it because they got lucky with the voters or a computer bug or some sort of popularity raffle.

They did it fair and square just like any other sport.

They did it because they won the playoffs.