GATORS COLUMN

Gators Saved Best For Last

By MARTIN FENNELLY

Published: Jan 9, 2007

GLENDALE, Ariz. - Turns out the BCS hue-and-cry babies were right. Florida wasn't the second-best team in the country.

"I've got to admit everybody in the country was right. We weren't the second best team in the country," Florida receiver Dallas Baker said. "We're the No. 1 team in the country."

Here's to Florida.

Sorry. My mistake.

The University of Florida.

Destiny won in a blowout in the desert. Undefeated Ohio State and Heisman winner Troy Smith were no match for the team with no chance. They were shocked. We were shocked. About the only ones who weren't shocked were the ones who did the shocking, 41-14.

All this season, the 100th season of Florida football, they were either the team no one thought would get here or didn't deserve to be here. But when it mattered, with a national title on the line, college football turned orange and blue again.

They saved their best for last. The Gators turned a night that couldn't have begun worse into a season that couldn't have ended better, not if the band had dotted the "I" in Florida. By the way, it's official:

Urban Renewal is complete.

These Gators reached heights Florida first and last reached 10 years ago with Steve Spurrier and Danny Wuerffel. Well, Urban Meyer, Chris Leak and a defensive night for the ages evened the score. This was a different bunch, not always brimming with "style points," whatever that meant. It means nothing this morning.

These Gators Played On

In related news, the NCAA is moving its headquarters to Gainesville to be closer to the Division I football and men's basketball championship trophies.

What can you say about a team that won 13 games out of 14 while the country was talking about everyone else? A little engine that kept chugging even after hitting a sidetrack at Auburn?

These Gators played on.

They needed the hand of Jarvis Moss to get here, that block against South Carolina.

These Gators played on.

Monday, they needed Leak, who was wonderful his last time around. They needed a defense that taught Ohio State that there is speed, and then there is SEC speed. They needed Meyer undressing Ohio State coach Jim Tressel until there was nothing left on him except his sweater vest.

They were tested even as Gator growlers back home were arranging the chips bowls in front of the big screens.

You looked up and Ted Ginn Jr. had run 93 yards with the opening kickoff. Ohio State led 7-0.

The heavy favorite leaned on destiny's child. All was going according to Script Ohio.

Memories of another desert massacre - Nebraska 62, Florida 24 - raced through everyone's brain pans. Would this get that coyote ugly?

But the kids in orange and blue knew different.

These Gators played on.

Script Ohio couldn't stop a storybook season.

So Florida scored a touchdown when they got the ball. Leak, who completed the first nine passes of his final college game, hit Dallas Baker for a touchdown. It was tied. And then it wasn't.

The Gators played on.

By the end of the first quarter, they'd scored again, for a 14-7 lead.

Then it was 21-7. Then it was 24-14, then 27-14, then 34-14. And then it was halftime.

Somewhere in this dream sequence, Florida kicker Chris Hetland, who'd made only four of 13 field-goal tries all season, hit from 42 and 40 yards. We knew then that God had scalped tickets to this game and swayed to "We Are The Boys" at the end of the third quarter.

Florida's defense bucked the odds and simply overwhelmed the Buckeyes. Ohio State hadn't seen pressure like this all season. The Ohio State offense managed 82 yards - in the game. Troy Smith completed four passes. Think about all that. Think.

When Florida defensive end Derrick Harvey flattened the Heisman winner for the first of his three sacks, you were surprised. When he did it again, you wondered what was going on.

And when Jarvis Moss sacked Smith, and the ball bounced nice as you please into Harvey's arms, setting up another Florida touchdown, the obligatory Tim Tebow moment, this time a TD pass (later, a TD run), you knew at last that Destiny's Children were on the march again. Nothing would stop them.

Bigger Trophy Case

You turned to the man who led them, who led this program back to the top in just two seasons.

Urban Meyer won a national title at Florida four seasons quicker than Spurrier did. He did it with a lot of guys Ron Zook couldn't get nine wins out of in any season.

The man from Ohio, whose wife carries a Buckeye nut for good luck, has made his luck in Gainesville, where has was unwanted at first by some in the Nation. They craved the second coming of Spurrier.

Monday, they got it.

And just in time for the new football offices at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. They better check the orange and blueprints. They might need a bigger trophy case.

Make room for one more. The one that says the 2006 Florida Gators were the best. No matter what anyone said, they said it better, and forever.