By Vince Mullins

Fantasy College Blitz

Lets get this out of the way first - other bowls/exhibitions/county fairs need to have a thorough discussion about “motivation”. This game does not. No half assing by Ball State, no Cincinnati playing like they couldn’t believe they were in the Orange Bowl - Florida and Oklahoma have career-defining games to prepare for in tonight’s BCSMNC (BCS Mythical National Championship). 8pm on FOX (Hey Fox Booth, can you get the audio mix to sound somewhat professional tonight? The Fiesta Bowl was a production nightmare.)

I maintain there is one universal force in this game, a Tim Tebow force of nature unlike the sport has ever seen - some call him the best college football player ever.

Would it shock you if Tebow (right, Icon SMI) gets drafted #1 overall in the NFL, got involved in a financial education movement that solved the global economic crisis then marries Erin Andrews? Gator Chomp, indeed…

That may be fantasy, but reality is Tebow contributing a national Title, being the first sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy, and bringing much needed medical care to the Polynesian Islands - you want to tell him he cannot win another title? You want to try and knock him down, say he would be the fourth best in the Big 12?

Safest bet of the night? Over? No. Take the points? Nope. Mr. Franks really regretting he ever opened his mouth? YES.

Cool facts for the chick at the watch party, deep quantitative analysis and a man-crush for Jermaine Gresham after the jump…

Cool facts for the ladies at the watch party

Sam Bradford has a Heisman Trophy. Shiny new one. Only other time in all of history that two Heisman winners faced off in any game? 2005 Orange Bowl - USC QB Matt Leinart (’04) versus Oklahoma QB Jason White (’03). That ended badly for the Sooners.

Gator RB Jeff Demps just missed qualifying for sprinting in the Olympics - he is barely the fastest guy on the team. Gators say they have a dozen guys running under 4.6 40’s including 6-6 290 DE Carlos Dunlap. ESSSSSEEEEEEECCCCCCC SSSPPPPEEEEEEDDDDD!

Chicks dig crystal. I have been married twice and the beauty of an expertly cut glass bowl makes the ladies melt. Women will haves mouths agape at the wonder of the BCS Trophy. The creator of the Trophy, Wedgewood Waterford, declared bankruptcy as another victim of the global economic crisis is taken.

Bradford is 1/16 Cherokee, providing another reason for him to be not just a football hero but a cultural hero.

When Sooners have the ball

(#2 offense faces #5 defense -insert overused Irresistible Force vs. Immovable objects phrase here)

Suffice it to say that the Sooners have not seen a defense like this since they faced TCU, and the Gators have not seen an offense like this AT ALL. It is possible Ole Miss was the best offense they faced all season and you know how that went.

This game will be decided right here - can Oklahoma’s immense and athletic offensive line handle the ultra-athletic Gators defensive line? Sooners struggled with TCU, another team in the Top 5 of pass efficiency defense like UF - and by struggle I mean only score 35. EA Sports should have some fun modeling this group for next years game - how about we just nickname them the XBOX offense? It really boils down to tempo - only a couple teams ran more plays than the Sooners because they snap the ball with 20 seconds on the play clock, and the Gators again have never faced a tempo like this. The ability for the Florida coaches to recreate this tempo in the five weeks of practice will be the inflection point of tonight’s battle, and it will be apparent in the first quarter.

Oklahoma sophomore quarterback Sam BradfordQB Sam Bradford is clean - rarely touched based on a frenetic no-huddle attack that led the nation in 54 ppg and scored TDs on about 75% of their possessions according to Dr. Saturday. The Sooner offense will be affected by their own RB injury, but theirs is without any doubt - DeMarco Murray is out and that hurts the running game and the return game. Chris Brown (not the one dating Rihanna) is a 1k yard rusher also but is more a bruiser to a cruiser. And by bruiser I mean he gets the tough yards and scored 20TD this season.

The embarrassment of riches at receiver will stress the Gator defense more than anything, and there are few more lethal talents than TE/”Big Slot” Jermaine Gresham - no one has matched up with him properly all season long and none of the Gators back seven has the bulk even if they have the speed. SLB Brandon Hicks will line up on Gresham’s side a lot and must contain the deep threat. MLB Brandon Spikes is a first-team All-American whose name will be mentioned often tonight as I expect to see the Gators commit to loading up the LOS to stop the run and pressure Bradford. If not, WR Juaquin Iglesias will be a hero. A good sized edge here to the Sooners.

When Gators have the ball

(BlitzIndex #1 offense versus #50 Defense)

Florida Offensive coordinator Dan Mullen is staying on to call the shots despite already accepting the Head Coach job at Mississippi State - conspiracy theorist think his head will be elsewhere. I am confident that Mullen received the Urban Meyer stare when asked if he was committed so no worries here. Did you know that the Gators run the ball 63% of the time? That 2:1 ratio trends highly in this season’s best offenses (Ball State, Tulsa, Oregon, Oklahoma State)

Percy Harvin ankle injury is key - will he be 100%? Even he told the media he is 90%. First item that comes to mind - remember Michael Jordan hitting an NBA Finals-cllinching jumper while racked with flu? His 70% was better than most people’s 100%. Likely same with Harvin. One of my best college friends Mike McKnight dropped this line on me once - “He is more injury prone than Helen Keller.” I think at the time that applied to Barry Larkin, but it seems to apply to Harvin now. He strikes me as an athlete like David Boston who may have bulked up beyond his body’s structural capacity to support it - this is no suggestion to performance enhancing drugs, just an observation that the human body sometimes can’t take all that mass. Harvin is one of the most electric players ever and I wish him nothing but the best, I hope his people see that getting him to long term health may involve losing what many would perceive as good muscle weight.

To the digits - Sooners possess the my #50 defense with their best efficiency stat being #46th in the country in 5.1 yds/play allowed. Granted they faced one of the nation’s best schedules and the best offenses so it may look worse than reality. Sooners stand third the nation in sacks per game but are 99th in pass yards per game allowed - those two stats have a lot to do with opponents passing 54% of the time. The loss of LB Ryan Reynolds in October will hurt the squads ability to prowl the breadth of the field which is most important versus the Gators, but if you don’t know the name LB Keenan Clayton yet you will tonight as he is as athletic as anyone in the nation.

Assuming Harvin is not a peak efficiency, the Alabama game showed the Gators have speed and talent elsewhere like Chris Rainey and Jeff Demps (10.01 100m in high school), but Tebow showed that he still has the touch to put the team on his back. The Gator offense is 62nd in the country in passing yards per game (212) because they didn’t have to pass in any games except said SEC Championship. Expect WR Louis Murphy and TE Aaron Hernandez to be a big part of the show. I give a big edge to the Gators here.

What Vegas says

#2 ranked Gators opened 3.5-point faves and the total set at 73, it has moved to 5-points and 69.5. The market likes Gators 37-32 although i do not recall ever seeing a score like that.

What Mullins says

I see the Oklahoma offense scoring less than 50, question for me is can the Gators outscore them? As the matchups above show I see the Oklahoma defense doing little to slow down the Florida pace unless Harvin just cannot be effective. All my numbers say to go with Oklahoma, but I just cannot bring myself to vote against the Gators given their outrageous commitment to winning since the Ole Miss loss. I appreciate that nasty habit of underdogs winning the Title Games lately, but also the recent history of Oklahoma in bowl games is less than inspiring.

Florida 42 Oklahoma 34