Reply #98: Seconded [View All]

[Awsi Dooger]

Congrats to Florida. They were forgiven a home loss by the system and then allowed to play a team from a very soft conference. Ridiculous that the Big 8 then Big 12 used to be a bully conference but now it's over rotated to being comical finesse. The Gators were simply more physical when it mattered, in the short yardage plays and many times when the ball was in the air.

I thought the representative play in that regard was end of the first half, tied at 7 with 10 seconds remaining, OU first and goal with no time outs. The analyst said the obvious, Oklahoma must throw it into the end zone, but I was not so sure. In Sam Bradford's mind it's still like the regular season, playing in their little flag football conference where a pitch to the 2 yard line will be rewarded with an uncontested jog into the end zone. Sure enough, he threw it short. Florida belted the receiver and made a crucial INT. Same thing at the end of the game when OU tried to throw short of the yard marker on 4th down. Plus the classic Bradford look of astonishment and "no fair" when his receiver was stripped of the ball for an INT when Oklahoma trailed only 17-14. The Big 12 always wants the easy way out. Its two best teams, Oklahoma and Texas, didn't stop a meaningful possession down the stretch of their bowls. Texas gave up a 17-6 lead to trail 24-21 before the somewhat fortunate final drive, and tonight Oklahoma didn't stop anything after it was tied 7-7 late 3rd quarter.

If it weren't the damn Gators, who I despise, I would have loved it, the pantyhose Big 12 being mauled. Here's how overrated the Big 12 was -- not one of the top 5 teams covered the spread in the bowl game. Missouri went into OT as a 12 point favorite, Oklahoma State lost by double digits as a favorite, same thing with Texas Tech, Texas barely escaped to win by 3 as an 8 point chalk, and tonight Oklahoma lost by 10 after being an underdog of +3 to +5, depending when you shopped. The public jumped on Florida late, proper disrespect for the Big 12.