Sizing up the BCS Championship Game
by Jeff Frank, Sports Analyst (Sports Network)

 It's easy to see why Florida and Oklahoma will be meeting for the BCS Championship. The Gators and Sooners finished a full touchdown ahead of third-place USC in the final regular season Jeff Frank Top 10 Poll.

Florida ended the year with a 116.5 power rating, one point ahead of Oklahoma. USC was a distant third at 108.5, with Texas right behind the Trojans at 108.

The Gators, who have held the top spot for the last seven weeks, showed why they belong in Miami on January 8, as they came from behind to defeat Alabama, 31-20, in the SEC Championship, a game the Gators played without star wide receiver Percy Harvin. The Crimson Tide led by three points heading into the fourth quarter, but Tim Tebow took control engineering two long touchdown drives, and the defense held Alabama to one total yard in the final stanza for the 11-point win.

It was a huge ATS win for the Gators, who ended up covering the spread by a single point after being on the other side of the ATS ledger for 57 of the 60 minutes. The loss of Harvin was significant not only in the margin of victory but for the over/under total, as the only "over" bettors who came out on the winning side were those that wagered very early in the week.

In the Big 12 matchup, Oklahoma continued its offensive assault with a 62-21 thrashing of Missouri. The Sooners, who have scored 60 or more points in five straight games, have gone over the total in nine consecutive contests and 11 of the 12 lined games this season.

Oklahoma is now 6-0 both SU and ATS in its last six games with a 10-2 overall ATS mark. Florida has been just as impressive against the spread this year at 10-1-1, including eight straight ATS wins. However, only one of the two teams will be able to gain ATS victory number 11.

AN EARLY LOOK AT FLORIDA-OKLAHOMA
Can the SEC pick up its third straight BCS Championship, both straight up and against the spread? Florida dusted off Ohio State 41-14 to win the title two
seasons ago as a 7.5-point underdog, while favored LSU kept the trophy within the conference with its 38-24 stomping of the Buckeyes last year.

This year could be the toughest of the three, since the 2008 Oklahoma Sooners are the highest-scoring team in the history of college football. Since losing to Texas on October 11, the Sooners have averaged 60 points per game. The defense has given up of 29 per contest during that span, but how much of that matters when the offense can more than double that amount?

Since the Big 12 has some of the finest offenses in the country, Oklahoma's defense will not be seeing anything new from Florida. On the other hand, the Gators could be hard-pressed to hold the Sooners down, since the bulk of the teams they have faced have been exceptionally offensively challenged.

Florida's defense is ranked fifth in the country, but the main reason the Gators hold such a high position is due to the lack of offensive firepower within their own league. Seven of the 12 clubs averaged 22 points or less, and that's not because the teams in the SEC play amazing defense. Eight of the other 11 squads besides Florida averaged fewer offensive points per game this season compared to last year, while the entire league scoring defense has improved by only three points.

Another interesting nugget from the SEC shows that just three of the 16 quarterbacks with 100 attempts or more recorded a QB rating of 124 or higher. By comparison, only one quarterback in the Big 12 finished with a lower number, Colorado's Cody Hawkins, and Oklahoma didn't even get to face him. Nor did the Sooners have a chance to lower the rating of the next-to-last ranked quarterback, Iowa State's Austen Arnaud.

Florida, on the other hand, had the luxury of matching up against lackluster signal-callers for most of the season, especially later in the year as four of the last six FBS teams the Gators faced not only went with a tandem at the quarterback spot, but the combined QB rating of those eight quarterbacks is a paltry 107.5.

One misconception about the Big 12 is that not a single team plays any defense. However, only five of the 12 clubs allowed more points this season vs. 2007 and on top of that, Oklahoma gave up just 21 points to both Texas Tech and Missouri, two teams that averaged over 40 points per game this year and finished in the top six in the country in scoring.

Even though the Gators defeated five teams that were ranked in the Top 25 at the time of the game, only two (Georgia and Alabama) remained in the poll at
the end of the regular season. By comparison, the Sooners knocked off five teams that made the final Top 25 and the club they lost to on a neutral field finished number three, while the team that beat Florida - in Gainesville - ended up 20th.

This game pits the top two teams from the nation's two best conferences. Unfortunately for Florida, the number one club from the SEC will not be able to match scores with the best team from the superior league. And as a bargain, since the game is being played in the state of Florida, the Sooners are actually getting a field goal.

Take Oklahoma plus the points.

THE FINAL REGULAR SEASON TOP 10 AND THE UPDATED RECORD
Florida and Oklahoma have been one-two for the last three weeks, but the one-point differential is the closest margin between these two teams since the Sooners held a one-point advantage after the first weekend of October.

Here are the latest rankings:
1) Florida, 116.5; 2) Oklahoma, 115.5; 3) USC, 108.5; 4) Texas, 108; 5) Penn State, 103.5; 6) Alabama, 102; 7) Ohio State, 100.5; 8) Boise State, 100; 9) Texas Tech, 99; 10-T) TCU and Ole Miss, 98.5

The overall record now stands at 56-55-1 with a 26-21-1 mark in key plays (1-1-1 last week, W - Rutgers, L - Arizona State, P - Over/Under in Florida- Alabama) and a 30-34 record in secondary selections.

HOME STATE BOWL ADVANTAGE
In an obvious attempt to bring fans into huge stadiums, 12 of the first 22 bowl games will have one of the two teams playing in its home state. Last year's bowl schedule only had four hometown teams in the first 21 contests. Incidentally, the "home" team ended up covering three of those four games.

Be aware of these matchups when making your wagers and pay close attention to the lines to see if the oddsmakers have adjusted them to include a partial home field advantage. Only one team this year (Hawaii) gets to play in its home stadium, but many others will be "hosting" their opponents.

A few in particular that come to mind are Rice (Texas Bowl vs. Western Michigan), Vanderbilt (Music City Bowl vs. Boston College), Georgia Tech (Chick-fil-A Bowl vs. LSU), South Florida (St. Petersburg Bowl vs. Memphis), Central Michigan (Motor City Bowl vs. Florida Atlantic) and California (Emerald Bowl vs. Miami-Florida).