At long last, thanks to the force of nature that is the Southeastern Conference, college football fans get the latest game of the century with Saturday's Florida-Alabama conference title game.
The Georgia Dome will be abuzz with the latest in-season No. 1-vs.-No. 2 meeting of a pair of undefeated teams in the defending national champion Gators, and second-ranked Crimson Tide, both 12-0. And only college football's resident bully, the SEC, could provide such a game as the Dixie Kings are now guaranteed a team to play for the national title for the sixth time since the Bowl Championship Series began in 1998. As any SEC fan will tell you, those teams are unbeaten in title games (5-0), compared to the combined mark of the other five BCS leagues (5-10).
Then again, considering the combined salaries of Florida coach Urban Meyer and Alabama's Nick Saban (some $7.3 million or more than double the combined deals of TCU's Gary Patterson, Cincinnati's Brian Kelly and Boise State's Chris Petersen, the teams ranked 4-6 in this week's BCS rankings), this go round of Florida-Bama just proves you get what you pay for.
In any event, the seventh Gators-Tide meeting since the SEC title game debuted in 1992 promises to be much different than last year's 31-20 Gators win, one of the better games this decade.
If you like defense, you'll enjoy this. Both teams grudgingly give up yards and points (UF leads the nation in both scoring defense 9.8 points per game, a point better than second-place UA, and total defense at 223.1 ypg with the Tide third at 233.9 ypg). So the chances of these two matching last year's combined 403 total yards and 51 points are right there with Tiger Woods and his wife going showing up for dinner at your local Applebee's.
There's uncertainty and intrigue for both teams coming in.
For Alabama, sophomore Mark Ingram (the SEC's leading rusher with 1,429 yards) looked ineffective in the Tide's 26-21 comeback win at Auburn and is battling a hip injury. He'll play but how well is anybody's guess. Ingram is key as Saban is hardly comfortable trying to beat UF with so-so QB Greg McElroy (6 TD passes, 3 ints. in his last six SEC games) chucking it 40 times.
Everything looked great for Florida until around 3:30 Tuesday morning when star DE Carlos Dunlap, the defensive MVP of last year's BCS national title win over Oklahoma and tied for the team lead with 7 sacks, picked the wrong time to fall asleep behind the wheel at a Gainesville intersection. The ensuing field sobriety tests went about as well as the Charlie Weis regime at Notre Dame.
So Meyer, after initially taking a cue from his upstart nemesis Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin and "gathering more information" about Dunlap's DUI arrest, suspended him indefinitely Tuesday. So the focus now turns to his backups -- juniors Justin Trattou, who has started two games and turned in a huge interception in a tough win at South Carolina two weeks ago, and Duke Lemmens, who tied his career-high with two solo tackles in Saturday's 37-10 rout of Florida State.
Yet in the end, this game boils down to one obvious factor -- Gators QB Tim Tebow. "Saint Tim" literally willed the Gators past 'Bama last year in Atlanta, throwing three touchdown passes and rallying UF from a 20-17 deficit with under 10 minutes left. In the final quarter of his first comeback win, he went 5-of-5 for 72 yards and a touchdown as UF outgained Alabama 130-6 in total yards in the final quarter.
It will play out the same way Saturday, albeit with less scoring. Don't be surprised if 'Bama leads well into the final quarter, but its worn-out defense finally falls to Tebow.
Florida 17, Alabama 13.
UPSET PICK: South Carolina moved us to a stunning, career-best 9-4. We'll close on a high note when No. 13 Oregon State avenges last year's 65-37 drubbing by Oregon and shocks the No. 7 Ducks Thursday night in Eugene to earn the Beavers' first Rose Bowl trip since 1965.
DUMB IDEA: No sense in barbecuing the anti-Bowden contingent at Florida State that has now won out with coach Bobby shoved into retirement following FSU's upcoming bowl appearance. Sure, 315 wins and two national titles at a school not known for much on the gridiron prior to his arrival should have bought Papa Bowden an encore season in 2010.
But we have a real inkling that years from now the only thing that will be judged harsher than Seminoles successor Jimbo Fisher is the ludicrous "coach-in-waiting" concept that brought him to Tallahassee in the first place.
How could Fisher, an offensive coordinator with no heading coaching experience, possibly be the absolute perfect fit for FSU over any other active head coach in the nation? So perfect that you don't even consider Georgia's Mark Richt, Georgia Tech's Paul Johnson or Wake Forest's Jim Grobe? Or anybody at 116 other D-I schools? As Forrest Gump famously said "stupid is as stupid does."
(E-mail John Lindsay at lindsayj@shns.com. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
Final columnof season
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