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Gators Roll to BCS Tiltle Game
Alabama 20, Florida 31
(ATLANTA) When Florida needed a
big run, Tim Tebow tucked the ball under his arm and took off. When the
Gators needed to complete a pass, he threw it right where it had to be.
 That's not all. He was motivator and cheerleader too.
Before the clinching drive he
gathered the offense around him and shouted, "Let's go win it here!"
After the Southeastern Conference title was Florida's - and, in all
likelihood, a spot in the national championship game - he ran nearly
three-quarters around the edge of the Georgia Dome, slapping hands with
the Gator faithful in the stands.
"That was practically the hardest part of the day," Tebow quipped.
No worries. He can handle whatever role the Gators throw his way.
With another virtuoso performance,
Tebow gave No. 2 Florida a shot at its second national title in three
years, handed No. 1 Alabama its first loss of the season and made a
strong case for another Heisman Trophy in a 31-20 victory over the
Crimson Tide on Saturday.
"I've had some great players, and
I've got some great players on this team," Florida coach Urban Meyer
said. "But I've never had one like this. Tim's got something special
inside him. I'm not talking about throwing. I'm not talking about
running. I'm talking about making everyone around him better. That
fourth quarter was vintage Tim Tebow."
The junior quarterback had an 0-5
record when his team trailed in the second half, and the Gators went to
the final period down 20-17. But Tebow removed that blemish from his
record, throwing the last of his three touchdowns passes with less than
3 minutes remaining to clinch it.
"He's a great competitor. He takes
his teammates on his shoulders a lot," Alabama coach Nick Saban said.
"They have a lot of confidence he's going to make plays, and they play
that way. They scored two touchdowns where we had them covered about as
well as we could cover them."
The win should be enough to give
Florida (12-1) a spot in the BCS title game for the second time in
three years, and Tebow's performance will surely bolster his chances of
becoming just the second player to win the Heisman Trophy two years in
a row.
"We don't want to be denied in
anything we do," said Tebow, who carried his team with injured star
Percy Harvin watching from the sidelines.
Showing it could win a close game in
a season of routs, Florida (12-1) scored the go-ahead touchdown with
about just over 9 minutes remaining on a 2-yard run by Jeff Demps,
among those filling in for the injured Harvin. Tebow finished the
scoring with a pass that couldn't have been thrown any better, hitting
Riley Cooper for a 5-yard TD with 2:50 left.
 Alabama (12-1) couldn't have picked
a worse time to lose. The Crimson Tide will likely settle for a spot in
the Sugar Bowl, ruining any chance of adding another national
championship to its glorious history.
Instead, mark down a spot in the
title game for Florida, which won it just two years ago with a rout of
Ohio State. The Gators came into the game ranked fourth in the BCS
standings, but the impressive win over unbeaten and top-ranked Alabama
will surely be enough to move them into one of the top spots.
Their opponent will be Oklahoma who beat Missouri 62-21 in the Big 12 title game, assuring itself a matchup with the Gators.
They will have to stop
Tebow, who was 14-of-22 passing 216 yards and led the team in rushing
with 57 yards. He tossed a 3-yard touchdown pass to Carl Moore to
finish off Florida's opening possession, went 5 yards to David Nelson
to give the Gators a 17-10 halftime lead, and came through one more
time to clinch the victory.
With Florida facing third-and-goal
at the 5 after a rare sideline interference penalty, Tebow found Cooper
breaking toward the middle in front of Marquis Johnson. The perfectly
thrown pass - low enough to give no chance of an interception but high
enough to catch - was cradled by a diving Cooper to make it a two-score
game.
Joe Haden's interception ended any hope of a comeback. Tebow was named the game's MVP.
"One more year! One more year!" the
Florida fans chanted afterward, hoping their junior quarterback will
return for his senior season.
Alabama trailed at halftime for first time this year, but just the fact that it was close put the Gators in an unusual position.
Florida came in as the nation's
third-highest scoring team (46.3 points a game) and its average margin
of victory was a staggering 37 points. Then again, the Gators did lose
their only close game, a shocking 31-30 defeat to Mississippi at the
Swamp on the final weekend in September.
The Tide was feeling good about
itself after Mark Ingram scored on a 2-yard run and Leigh Tiffin booted
his second field goal, a 27-yarder that pushed Alabama ahead going to
the final period.
But Florida caught a huge break when
Demps was dragged down short of the marker on third down, but Dont'a
Hightower got a handful of facemask. The 15-yard penalty gave the
Gators first down at the Bama 27.
Tebow took it from there. A 13-yard
pass to Nelson. Then a 6-yarder to Nelson again to convert another
third down by a yard. And finally, a quick pitch to Demps, who streaked
around the left side and hurdled over two fallen players at the goal
line for a 24-20 lead.
"Going 12-0 is a hard thing to do,"
Saban said. "Every time they needed to make a play, Tim Tebow made the
plays that made the difference in the game."
This was the 41st meeting between the top two teams in The Associated Press poll. No. 1 still holds a 23-16-2 edge.
The Gators had to play without
Harvin, who didn't even suit up after spraining his right ankle the
previous week in a win over Florida State. He walked on the field
stiff-legged - clearly, it wasn't even a close call whether or not he
would play - and watched the game from the sideline wearing his No. 1
jersey.
During the regular season, Harvin
was the team's top receiver with 35 catches for 595 yards and seven
touchdowns. He also was second on the team in rushing with 543 yards,
scoring nine TDs on the ground.
But Florida still had Tebow. That was the difference.
Meyer, not surprisingly, gave his endorsement for another Heisman.
"I think he's the best college football player in America," the coach said.
The Alabama-Florida matchup was a
mainstay of the SEC championship in its early years.  The teams met in
the first three title games and four of the first five, beginning with
the historic 1992 game in which the Crimson Tide won on a late
interception return by Antonio Langham.
Alabama went on to rout Miami in the
Sugar Bowl, winning its sixth national title. They'll have to wait
another year for a shot at No. 7.
The first 1-2 matchup in the 17-year
history of the SEC championship drew a record crowd of 75,892 to the
Georgia Dome. The fans were essentially split down the middle - crimson
and white on one side, blue and orange on the other.
The Gators marched right down the
field on their first possession, looking as unstoppable as they did in
most games this season. Tebow handled most of the load, completing
three passes for 26 yards and running four times for 19 more.
 But Alabama wasn't going to go down
as meekly as most of Florida's opponents. Glen Coffee ran for 112 yards
and a touchdown. Julio Jones hauled in five passes for 124 yards. The
Tide defense delivered numerous crushing blows, hoping to rattle the
Gators.
Tebow wouldn't let them bite.
"We kind of ran out of gas a little bit in the fourth quarter," Saban said. "We didn't finish, and they did."
Box Score
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Posted by mrpickem on Thursday, December 18 @ 08:49:43 EST (19 reads)
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Celebration? Where?
When the Dogs scored their first touchdown yesterday, there was no on-field celebration and there was very little cheering, because most of the Bulldog fans had long left the stadium. The TD came late in the 4th quarter and made the score 49-9!
 "We didn't talk about (the celebration) this week, but we saw it, we knew about it," Tim Tebow said. "It was all over the place. We knew about it.
For a team that had been building for Saturday's moment for, oh, about 365
days, the Gators dismantled the Bulldogs before 84,649 with cold, ruthless
efficiency and with surprisingly little obvious emotion. They didn't celebrate
anything until after the game, when they did their traditional post-game
routine of singing the fight song and the alma mater in front of the UF band.
That celebration did happen to occur in the same end zone where the Bulldogs
held their controversial celebration after their first touchdown a year ago.
The victory lifts the No. 5 Gators to 7-1 overall and 5-1 in the SEC.
Florida can clinch the conference's Eastern Division title with a win at
Vanderbilt on Saturday night. The Gators also remain solidly in the national
title hunt. In the last four games, the Gators have outscored the opposition
201 to 43, and will get a lot of national attention for Saturday's crushing of
preseason No. 1 Georgia.
"I admire this team," UF coach Urban Meyer said. "The
admiration is starting to get real strong. I told them I love them. All a coach
ever wants is a team to take a real professional approach. With all the
nonsense going around this whole week, it was awesome.
 "We have to get a team ready to go to Nashville next week. I know we're
competing to get to Atlanta. That's real important to us."
The Gators certainly looked like strong championship contenders Saturday.
Tebow rushed for three touchdowns and threw for two more. And the UF
defense, trampled in this game a year ago, forced four big turnovers that
helped turn a close game into perhaps the ultimate revenge rout.
"I thought (defensive coordinator Charlie Strong) called a brilliant
game and credit goes to the players for executing the plan," Meyer said.
"When you play great defense, you're going to win a bunch of football
games."
"I knew we had this in us," said senior wide receiver Louis
Murphy, whose 44-yard TD reception gave the Gators a 28-3 lead late in the
third quarter. "We've been getting better and better.
"Last year, everybody knew what happened. We didn't need anything to
motivate us. It was in the back of our minds and we came out and played our
hearts out. The best answer is to come out and play like this. We were ready,
we hit on all cylinders. I didn't see this coming, but I knew we had a chance
to do what we did tonight."
And best of all, let's not forget that all Lock Club members were heavy on the Gators and the Over was released at the Total Play of the Year!!!
Box Score
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Posted by mrpickem on Sunday, November 02 @ 05:37:20 EST (43 reads)
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Gators Back in the Hunt
Gainesville, FL - Reigning Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow threw for 210 yards with two touchdown tosses to Percy Harvin, as the 11th- ranked Florida Gators annihilated the No. 4 LSU Tigers, 51-21, in a highly anticipated SEC battle.
The romp in the Swamp featured the past two National Champions, the first such meeting in college football since Notre Dame (1988 champs) defeated Miami-Florida (1989 champs) in 1990.
The Gators rattled off 21 straight second-half points to pull away for the victory. Tebow added a rushing touchdown for Florida (5-1, 3-1 SEC), which has won two straight since its lone loss to Ole Miss. Freshman Jeffrey Demps rushed for 129 yards and a score on just 10 carries for the Gators, who had lost three of the previous four in this rivalry.
 "It was a great win for us," Tebow said. "We knew it was a big game coming in. LSU is a very good team. We wanted to start strong and we did that. They rallied back and made it a game, but we responded with maturity and took over at the end."
Brandon Spikes led the Florida defense with five tackles and two interceptions, returning one 52 yards for a touchdown in the victory.
Jarrett Lee was rattled under center, hitting 23-of-38 passes for 209 yards with two touchdowns and a pair of interceptions for LSU (4-1, 2-1), which had a six-game winning streak, dating back to last season, snapped.
"UF played a great game," Lee said. "I made some misreads and their defense took advantage of them. They are an outstanding team on both sides of the ball. I thought we fought back well, but they were just too much in the end."
Charles Scott was held under 100 yards rushing for the first time in five games, netting just 35 yards on 12 carries. Richard Dickson hauled in six balls for 36 yards and a touchdown for the Tigers, who were outgained 475-321.
The defending champion Tigers finally came to life in the closing seconds of the first half, as Lee made consecutive completions of 24, 12 and 8 before a hook-and-lateral to Trindon Holliday put the ball on the Florida six. Two plays later Lee found Chris Mitchell in the right corner of the end zone to make it a 20-7 game at the break.
LSU appeared poised to make a game of it with a 12-play, nearly 6 1/2-minute drive coming out of the locker room. Andrew Hatch was under center and called his own number on an option play, pounding in a three-yard touchdown with 8:41 left in the third, but the Gators rattled off the next three touchdowns.
"We turned the ball over enough on offense," LSU head coach Les Miles said. "We did not control the ball in the first half. In the second half when they needed to score, they came down there. When we closed the game and made it a six point game, they turned it around and got seven."
Tebow hit Louis Murphy on a 37-yard completion to move the ball to the LSU two and went to his patented bootleg on the next play to waltz into the end zone for a 27-14 lead.
LSU quickly punted the ball back to Florida, and Demps took a handoff off the left side, using his deadly speed to motor for a 42-yard score.
The game was all but wrapped up after the first play of the fourth quarter, as Spikes stepped in front of a Lee pass and galloped past an LSU lineman for a 52-yard touchdown, giving Florida an untouchable 41-14 edge.
After a Tebow fumble, LSU got a little closer with a six-yard hookup between Lee and Dickson with 11:10 remaining in the game.
But a 25-yard field goal from Jonathan Phillips and a two-yard, cherry-on-top two-yard jaunt by Kestahn Moore at the two-minute mark put the finishing touches on a memorable Florida victory.
From the third play of scrimmage, the game appeared destined to end in a Gators victory. Tebow terribly underthrew his receiver on 3rd-and-12, but LSU safety Danny McCray tipped the errant throw directly into the arms of Harvin, who hauled in the deflection and burst into the end zone for a 70-yard TD.
After the Tigers went three-and-out, Florida made its way inside LSU's five yard line but only came away with a 20-yard Phillips field goal at the seven minute mark.
Again LSU failed to net a first down and Tebow answered with a seven-play, 41 yard drive that Harvin capped with a seven-yard reception on a perfectly run slant pattern.
Spikes put an exclamation point on the dominating opening 15 minutes by picking off Lee at LSU's 49.
"I want to thank the crowd tonight," Florida head coach Urban Meyer said. "That was as fine of a crowd as I have ever seen. I think that our team had the most well-rounded performance of the season. We were able to jump out to an early start against a great team with great football players. They're the reigning national champions."
Florida didn't score on the ensuing drive, but went to the ground game midway through the second. The 11-play drive stalled at the Tigers 17, but Phillips booted one through the uprights for a 20-0 Florida lead with 49 ticks left in the half.
Box Score
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Posted by mrpickem on Sunday, October 12 @ 06:20:15 EDT (59 reads)
(Read More... | Score: 0) |
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UCLA / Tenny on Labor Day
The Bruins open the Rick Neuheisel era with a tough non-conference clash against Tennessee at the Rose Bowl.
Neuheisel, a former UCLA quarterback who has had head-coaching stops at
Colorado and Washington, inherits a squad that went a disappointing 6-7
last year (9-4 ATS). Despite a .500 record, the Bruins snuck into the
Las Vegas Bowl, where they lost to BYU 17-16, though they covered as a
six-point underdog even though coach Karl Dorrell was fired as coach
after the regular season. In the spread-cover versus BYU, UCLA enters
this season on a 4-0 ATS roll.
Phil Fulmer, who took over for Johnny Majors midway through the 1992
season, is entering his 17th year as head coach at Tennessee, which
went 10-4 last year (9-4-1 ATS). The Vols hit their stride down the
stretch, winning six of their last seven games (5-1-1 ATS), including a
21-17 New Year’s Day victory over Wisconsin as a 2½-point favorite in
the Outback Bowl.
UCLA is already thin at QB, with Pat Cowan (knee) out for the season
and Ben Olson (foot) likely out until midseason, leaving Neuheisel with
junior college transfer Kevin Craft under center. The Bruins have just
nine returning starters from a team that struggled to score last year,
being held to 16 points or less six times, including four games in
single digits. In fact, UCLA barely outscored its opponents last
season, averaging 22.4 ppg while allowing of 22.3.
As with UCLA, Tennessee will have a first-year starter at QB in
Jonathan Crompton, but 1,000-yard rusher Arian Foster and 1,000-yard
receiver Lucas Taylor return, as do four of five offensive linemen. The
Vols, playing in the perennially tough SEC, averaged 32.5 ppg last year
while allowing just a few points less at 27.3.
The Bruins are 16-4 ATS in their last 20 games at the Rose Bowl, and
they are on further positive pointspread runs of 6-0 as a home ‘dog,
4-0 against the SEC, 13-2-1 overall as a pup since 2004 and 19-7-1 in
September. The Volunteers are 14-2 SU in their last 16 season openers,
but both losses came in West Coast road games, at UCLA in 1994 and at
California last year. Tennessee sports ATS streaks of 4-0 in non-SEC
play and 5-2 in September.
For UCLA, the under is on runs of 4-0 overall, 4-0 at home and 6-2 in
non-conference action. The total also stayed low in six of Tennessee’s
final seven games in 2007.
The MAN sez, take UCLA +7 and UNDER 47
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Posted by mrpickem on Monday, September 01 @ 16:16:13 EDT (71 reads)
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ProverB
"Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated; it satisfies the
soul and frustrates the intellect. It is at the same time rewarding and
maddening - and it is without a doubt the greatest game mankind has
ever invented"
- Arnold Palmer
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