HERE'S WHY:

Gators deserve championship shot after SEC title

Posted 12/3/2006 | Filed under News | Permalink

The Florida Gators are your 2006 SEC Champions. They are the second-best team in the country. They should play Ohio State for the national championship. Period.

Michigan? They came in second in a major conference. Mazel tov. The championship game isn’t for conference also-rans. It’s for champions. Like the Florida Gators.

Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel:

I know what I wrote two weeks ago, that Michigan deserved a rematch with Ohio State; that the Gators couldn’t stay on the field with the Buckeyes. That was then. This is now.

And now, after Saturday’s impressive victory over a very good Arkansas team in the SEC Championship Game, the Gators can play with Ohio State. Or, at the very least, they deserve the opportunity to see if they can. Step aside, Michigan. You had your shot at the Buckeyes and lost. So let’s see what the Gators can do.

“We belong,” Florida Coach Urban Meyer said. “We deserve a shot. Another team had their shot. I think the country wants to see the SEC champion against the Big Ten champion. If you’re going to tell me that we can go 12-1 against the toughest schedule in the country and don’t deserve a shot, I have a problem with that.”

Michigan had the BCS momentum two weeks ago, but now Florida does — and rightfully so. That’s the beauty and the burden of the BCS. Opinions change from week to week, sort of like politics. We liked Michigan two weeks ago just as we liked George W. Bush six years ago. Stuff happens.

You have to take the entire body of work into account. Leonardo da Vinci wasn’t judged halfway through the Mona Lisa when all you could see was her hair. You had to see her smile to get the full impact.

Same with the Gators. You had to see Meyer’s giddy grin Saturday after his team clinched the school’s first SEC championship in six years to get the full impact. Until this surreal Saturday in a delirious dome, none of us were really sure the Gators were true champions.

Now we know. They not only played with the level head of a champion; they played with the fighting heart of one. And the BCS boys said they wanted style points. Well, the Gators gave them their style points. And guile points. And smile points. They showed mettle and moxie and guts and grit and all those other qualities you look for in championship teams.

Randall Mell of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

Outside Gator Country, Florida was deemed too boring to pit against the Buckeyes. The Gators didn’t dazzle anyone holding on to beat Florida State, South Carolina and Vanderbilt in the month of November. National media have unabashedly ridiculed the notion that anyone outside Gainesville would want to see the Gators in the national title game.

But the Gators were eloquent here Saturday.

That’s the best word to describe this showing, because that is what this night was all about. The Gators needed to do more than win. They needed to make a forceful and persuasive statement. They did so in a game that was as dramatic and entertaining as that Ohio State victory against Michigan. Except Florida won. …

Michigan fans will argue that their team was the consensus No. 2 most of the season, and that their Wolverines shouldn’t have lost that standing in a well-played 42-39 loss at Ohio State in their regular-season finale.

But if it’s true that these late-season games are college football’s version of the playoffs, then the Wolverines were eliminated. You win this time of year, you advance. You lose, you play in a consolation bowl somewhere.

You want to compare Florida and Michigan?

The NCAA currently ranks Florida’s schedule as the toughest in the land based on the cumulative record of its opposition. Michigan’s schedule ranks third.

The Gators have defeated three teams ranked among the BCS Top 25, including No. 5 LSU and No. 9 Arkansas. The Wolverines have beaten just two, No. 7 Wisconsin and No. 10 Notre Dame.

The strongest argument of all is that the Gators won the SEC, which you can argue is the toughest, deepest conference in the land. Michigan couldn’t win its own conference.

Five SEC teams rank among the BCS top 25, two more than the Big Ten.

Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated:

The reality is, the Michigan/Florida debate strikes at the heart of an issue that’s never been formally addressed by the BCS: Is the title game supposed to match the two best teams in the voters’ eyes or the two most deserving. Because it’s hard to argue against the Gators in terms of the latter.

Florida beat teams currently ranked fifth (LSU), ninth (Arkansas) and 16th (Tennessee) in the BCS standings. Michigan beat No. 7 Wisconsin, No. 10 Notre Dame and … unranked Penn State.

The Gators beat seven teams that finished the season with winning records and nine that are bowl-eligible. The Wolverines: Four and six.

But most of all, Florida won what most consider to be the toughest conference in the country this season. Michigan finished second in a conference whose fifth-best team was Purdue.

Mark Schlabach of ESPN.com:

So here are the cold, hard facts when comparing the Gators and Wolverines:

1. Florida beat nine teams that are projected to play in bowl games. Michigan beat six.

2. Michigan beat five teams that finished the season with losing records. Florida beat two teams with sub-.500 records.

3. Florida’s 12 Division I-A opponents had a combined record of 89-57. Michigan’s 12 opponents had a combined record of 84-61.

4. Michigan’s best win is considered a 27-13 victory over Wisconsin on Sept. 23. The Badgers are 11-1 and have climbed to No. 7 in the AP Top 25 poll, despite having played only one ranked opponent — the Wolverines — the entire season.

5. The 12 teams Florida defeated finished the season with 11 combined wins against opponents which were ranked in the AP Top 25 poll at the time the game was played. The opponents Michigan defeated claim just three wins against ranked teams (Notre Dame beat Penn State. Indiana beat Iowa. Vanderbilt beat Georgia. The Nittany Lions, Hawkeyes and Bulldogs, it should be noted, haven’t been ranked in seven weeks).

6. The Gators went 3-1 against ranked opponents, beating then-No. 13 Tennessee, No. 9 LSU and No. 8 Arkansas and losing at No. 11 Auburn. The Wolverines went 1-1 against ranked opponents, beating a highly overrated No. 2 Notre Dame team (that lost to Michigan and USC by a combined total of 46 points) and losing at No. 1 Ohio State 42-39 on Nov. 18.

7. The Gators’ average margin of victory against Division I-A teams was 13.5 points. They won seven games by 14 points or fewer, six by less than 10. The Wolverines’ average margin of victory was 17.3 points. They won six games by 14 points or fewer, two by less than 10.

8. The Gators played Western Carolina, a Division I-AA team, and won by 62 points. The Wolverines played Ball State, which should be a I-AA team, and won by eight.

9. Since the Wolverines last played and lost at Ohio State, the Gators won at Florida State (The Seminoles are 6-6, but rivalry games are tough to win. Just ask USC coach Pete Carroll) and then beat the No. 8 Razorbacks, who defeated then-No. 2 Auburn and No. 13 Tennessee by 17 points each.

10. Michigan didn’t win the Big Ten; Florida won the SEC. Winning your conference should be a prerequisite for playing in the national championship.