Wow...what a start for Ohio State....kickoff return for a touchdown.

And lord have mercy...Eddie George alert...Eddie George alert...I just stained my pants. Excuse me while I go and change.l

D'oh, beat me by a few seconds terp. I concede you the OSU/FLA thread.


Edit: And wow! Florida comes right back at them. Tied at 7, still over 10 minutes left in the 1st.

LOL..thats funny. We were both on it huh?

Perfect response from Florida with a touchdown drive to answer the kickoff return!!!!!! Wow!!!

Chris Leak...mmm mmm mmm...my boyfriend is givin me the eye because I am drooling over Leak. I can't help it. He's gorgeous and his eyes are dreamy.

Illini who are you rooting for?

He is pretty cute, haha, I really don't think about many athletes that way though. Old mental blocks I guess.


Edit: I'm rooting for OSU. Big Ten pride and all. Not to mention that they only beat my Illini by 7 this season. So if they beat FLA by more than 7, than technically Illinois would beat Florida.


That's how it works right?

Another personal foul on OSU. They should probably cut that out.

Troy Smith has not come out sharp at all while Leak seems very comfortable.

Thank God Troy Smith has not embraced the new trend of compression shorts.

I wasn't gonna say anything but I am loving the clear shot of Troy's jock. And lord that brotha has major junk in the trunk.

Everything is going Florida's way .... even Hetland's looking like Adam Vinatieri

Still a lot of game left and OSU is #1 for a reason but hopefully Florida can pick up where they left off. I really like Chris Leak and he has been under criticism a lot, even from his own damn school and their fans. But he has played with INCREDIBLE poise tonight. I'm so proud of him. Keep it up baby!!! As for Troy...I don't know. Heisman pressure? Overconfident since so many thought OSU would blow Florida away? Lets give credit where it is due. Florida is a very quick team offensively and defensively. For anyone who thinks Michigan should be here instead of Florida...SHUT IT UP...ZIP IT...AND THROW IT AWAY!!

My goodness sometimes I believe college football is so fixed.

I'M LOVIN IT...my baby Chris shut up the haters and doubters and showed the poise of a champion. The only thing good about Troy Brown tonight was the view of his jockstrap. Other than that...A TOTAL EGG. OSU defense and OSU offensive line laid up a duck as well. Florida offensively and defensively was so quick. Excellent game and I can't wait to hear the commentators, especially Eddie George have to eat that crow. And OSU was so full of excitement with that opening kickoff for a touchdown in which the refs totally missed a hold from an OSU special teams player on a Florida player who would've been able to tackle Ginn.

Great game, really. I'm glad Leak gets was able to silence all the haters, I'm glad SEC teams did the conference proud, and I'm very glad Meyer was able to win one as a guy who rose up through the ranks from the smaller conferences into the big time.

From my perspective, though, this was still less about all of that, and less about Leak vs. Smith, and more of a preview of what Tim Tebow will bring to the party.

Don't get me wrong, I'm stoked about Leak's success, but I'm also very very please Meyer got Tebow into the game. A lot of pressure on big ol' T.T. in the years to come, I think, but no one can deny this was an exceptional, if not auspicious, start of what can be a stellar college career.

And that's not just cuz I think Tebow is gorgeous...

That was the least exciting and entertaining national championship game I've seen in a long, long time. Ohio State just failed to show up. Very anti-climactic, especially in the same stadium that hosted the best bowl game in history a week ago.

Tressel and his DC obviously didn't do their homework in this game. Ask any SEC coach and they will tell you that the way to beat the Gators is to pressure Chris leak and force him into making mistakes. You can NOT do that playing a soft zone and dropping your linebackers 10-20 yards off the line of scrimmage. I was shocked at Tressel's game plan against Florida. His defensive schemes made no sense at all. OSU allowed Chris to get comfortable in the pocket and subsequently played right into Chris Leak's strengths; football intelligence and game management. Chris Leak, when unpressured, and working against a zone, will beat any team in the country. I can NOT believe Tressel didn't know this.

OSU should have blitzed Leak hard all game long, hit him hard, and got him rattled. Because they didn't, they got embarressed on national television. What an uninspired and listless peformance by the OSU players on both sides of the ball. The Gators were faster, more physical, and hungrier than the Buckeyes tonight, you have to wonder if OSU is as good as advertised. I didn't think Florida had a chance in this game, but I'm happy with the outcome. Good win for the University of Florida. Good win for Chris Leak. Good win for the SEC. Masterful job of play calling by Urban meyer! Congratulations Gators!

Before I made my pick for this game, I thought the best team that Ohio State had beaten was Michigan and as it turned out, Michigan wasn't that good. Why wouldn't Florida win?

So I picked Florida!

Well as a Buckeye fan that was pretty painful to watch. You can never count out a team that has absolutely nothing to lose.

Boise State to Number 1!

Florida's defense was so amazing tonight. I wasn't expecting the DL players to get to Troy Smith like they did. Absolutely great coaching by Urban Meyer. In one year, he has won a NATIONAL TITLE at Florida. Amazing.

Well two years at Florida. But he is the only coach to lead two different schools to BCS games and obviously the only one to win with two different schools.

Boise got a single #1 vote in the AP.

USC 55 - Oklahoma 19 in a game that Auburn should have played? USC was winning 38-10 after the first half. People have short memories...

USC-Oklahoma was more exciting than this one. That USC team was a juggernaut and it was at least fun to watch.

The Florida-Ohio State game was just painful to watch all the way around. When one team just fails to show up, it's no fun. It was a snoozefest.

Final thoughts:

This game was about sweet redemption for uber hottie Chris Leak who was rightfully the game's MVP. Why he was the subject of scrutiny by even some Florida fans I don't know. Tim Tebow will have his time but Chris proved tonight that there should have been no rumblings about Tebow having more play time or going in for Leak. For Leak to have to share the QB position with someone else in his senior year all season he had to have some feelings about it, but you would've never known it from his actions. He's a class act and a great teammate. Somewhere inside I'm sure Chris is loving that he shut up all those who doubted him, and the faith he had within prevailed over all the doubter's words. Chris was incredibly cool, calm, and collected tonight on college's biggest stage and joins an elite club of college champions. He came to Florida and proclaimed he would win a national championship, and in his last game as a Florida Gator, he delivered.

As for Ohio State...Troy Smith laid an egg but so did the entire Ohio State team. Offensive line sucked in protection, defense was terrible. This was an entire team loss. Ashame that this is what Troy Smith's collegiate career will most likely be remembered for because I still think he's a great college quarterback. 7 of the last 9 BCS national champions were the underdogs.

Florida was told by many that they had no chance and I loved the way the entire team responded. The offensive line, the defense, Leak's execution...phenomenal. Leak's legacy is cemented in Florida football and I couldn't be happier. ESPN did a great piece on him after the game about all the changes he had to endure in Florida. Freshman year he comes in having to prove himself. His coach was fired in his sophomore year, getting adjusted to a difficult offense in his junior year, and having to share the role with Tebow in his senior year. He leaves having broken some of the records set by Danny Wuerrfel (sp?) and now will be loved by Florida almuni and fans for eternity. Florida throughout the season didn't always get it done in the flashiest of ways but they were effective and thats all that matters. Congrats to the Florida Gators. The game was a snoozefest if you didn't want Florida to win because it was very enjoyable to me to see the Gators dominate Ohio State in every facet of the game after many of the "experts" predicted an Ohio State thumping.

Missed the game last night but was rooting for Florida to win all along.

A lot of myths were challenged by the game IMO:

No. 1-Strength is more important than speed and brains in a tough sport like football.

And who is this Percy Harvin guy seen here on the right when he first signed up for Florida?

With "two" good freshman quarterbacks, and who knows how many good defensemen coming back next year, expectations are going to be sky-high for this team.

They should pray that neither of them, or anyone else on the team for that matter, wins the Heisman.

Interesting that reading the reviews I don't see a lot of religious self-righteousness coming from the team or staff yet. Bet Ohio's Democratic governor Charlie Crist (Isn't ne rumored to be gay?) wishes he had gotten better than a case of Ohio wine out of his wager with their democratic governor Ted Strickland. Can you believe that the two states that put Bush in power played for the BCS Bowl championship after switching parties at governor. Karmic???

Count me among those who thought Florida didn't have a chance. I thought they might keep it close for awhile, but that OSU would pull away in the second half. D'oh!!!

What a dominating performance - holding OSU to less than 90 yards of total offense. I don't think anybody could have beaten Fla. last night. Gators showed a lot of poise after the opening kickoff return. The loss of Ginn was big for OSU, but in the end, I doubt it would have mattered had he not gotten hurt. This isn't an excuse, but you have to wonder how much affect the 50-day layoff had on OSU. So, does Florida come in as preseason No. 1 next year?

Did anyone else see this guy have the complete head in butt game?


http://ohiostatebuckeyes.cstv.com/sports/m...one_alex00.html

He was running all around the field not blocking a soul. On one play he does not complete the block, his man then promptly sacks Smith and coughs up the ball. At this point a FL player has picked up the ball and is heading towards the end zone. Does #75 follow the play and attempt to tackle the man with the ball??? Oh no...he runs over and flops on top of his initial block that by the way is lying on top of the star quarterback. I know that the offence runs certain plays and pull in certain directions but this guy missed block after block.

I turned the game off after watching the "Hail Mary" at the end of the first half and there were no Buckeye
players to be found???

Now I could careless who won the game, I was just hoping for something entertaining to watch

Just a couple of comments:

1) I didn't even watch this game because I didn't expect it to be close (in the other direction) and because it is so ridiculously scheduled late into the System. No reason this game could not be on a Saturday.

2) The length of the Bowl Games season is ridiculous and if they want it this extended, add a playoff system

3) PLAY-OFFS, PLAY-OFFS. One-off games do nothing to prove who is a National Champion. Its about getting through several games against the best, not just beating a great team once.

I think pushing the national championship game back all the way to January 8th was/is a mistake. Waiting a full week after the New Year's Day games made it a long wait... and this wasn't one filled with suspense where you couldn't wait to see it. (Maybe for OSU and Florida fans it was an exciting week in between the January 1 games and the final, but not for most people). It kind of felt like the entire bowl season lost its momentum after that great Fiesta Bowl between Boise State and Oklahoma. I truly think we would have seen a far better game in the BCS championship if it had occurred the day after that one in the same stadium.

I like the days of old when you had the national champion crowned on the 1st of the year. The bowls drag out too long now. And putting real lackluster games like the GMAC Bowl during the first week of January is just sad.

What an embarassment!!

Chris Leak was on Jay Leno tonight and all I can say is mmmm mmmm mmmm. That is one very handsome man...beautiful skin, million dollar smile. He said he made a vow not to date any girl during his time as a QB at Florida. Thats major discipline Chris. I'm sure the girls have been knocking down his door. He may not have dated but I'm sure he had some "extracurricular activity"

You're a far smarter man than I am. I did buy into the media hype surrounding OSU and Troy Smith, primarily because of the respect I have for the coaches at Texas and Michigan, both with national championships under their belts. But as it turned out, neither Texas nor Michigan was what we thought they were. Most people in the SEC thought Florida was in for a tough fight against tOSU, but after the ease with which USC dispensed the Wolverines, everbody changed their tune and thought as you did: If USC could manhandle a Michigan team that narrowly lost to OSU, it might be posible that neither Michigan nor tOSU is as good as advertised. Sports guys here in Baton Rouge started predicting a Florida route of tOSU after witnessing the USC/Michigan blowout. Turns out they were right.

What amazes me is that tOSU couldn't even put up 100 yards of offense; every one of Florida's SEC opponents managed more than 200 yards of offense. Somehow, PPC, I still find it hard to believe that tOSU is that bad! They can't be! Can they? Did the Gators suddenly turn into a football juggernaut in the month between the SEC championship and the NC game? I didn't see any new wrinkles in the Florida spread offense last night. Did you? It's the same offense that the University of South Carolina faced, and, they almost beat UF; ditto for Alabama and Tennessee.

I still maintain that Tressel and his DC gets most of the blame for their inept and ill-conceived defensive gameplan against the Gators----that horrible and ineffective three man line with slow footed dime defenders flooding the zone. You have to be a non-SEC coach to employ that defense against an Urban Meyer coached team (unless Tressel knew he didn't have to horses to play tight man coverage against the Florida receivers). Anyway, I thought Tressel's defensive scheme was a fatal mistake. Having said that, I'm not sure it would have made much difference what the tOSU defense did, since the offense was completelty throttled by Florida front four, particularly the two defensive ends. So maybe this was simply a case of one team being over-matched by their opponent.

If there was ever any doubt about the superior speed of the top tier SEC defenses (UF, LSU, AU), I think those doubts were laid to rest last night. As most guys on this board have posted, it might be time for a playoff, but there's no doubt in my mind that a NCAA football playoff system, without the bowl game, would deal a crippling financial blow to the mid-major schools. This would hurt, more than help, them in the long run, since bowl games is one of the recruiting tools coaches use to attract recruits.

OtherFSU....i have read several places where you absolutely refuse to give the Gators credit for winning this game....choosing instead to blame it on OSU "not showing up". Are you really serious that you think this game would have been more competitive if it was simply played on a different day????

I agree with other posters that you have always had a mid-major conference agenda but your hate of the SEC is really showing......or maybe its just the embarassment of being enormously off on your prediction of this game. Whatever it is...just face the music......you called the game totally wrong......Florida (the SEC Champs) completely outclassed the Big Ten Champs in every way possibe....and the Gators put a huge exclamation point on the fact that the SEC was easily this year's best football conference.

I don't have a dog in this fight, but this YouTube video is hilarious:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR_AELWjT60&eurl=

You talk about Chris Leak being a class act, I have seen it myself. He would never complain about the issue of sharing game time, nor about the fans being more excited for Tebow.

Addtionally, it was amazing to watch his post game interview... you would think the word "I" was not in his vocabulary. Every question asked of him about how he succeeded was answered with him speaking about how well the team played... the "O" line, the running backs, the receivers, the coaching staff, the defense... you name it, everything but "I"...

Go Chris, you have the poise and brains to make a great pro player... I would love to see my Fins draft you.