One Week To Go

I decided to start posting my thoughts on the 'ship since we are officially just a week away and Iowa is turning this Outback Bowl into a yawner.

This post was inspired by this Bill Simmons column.

Basically, the 2008 Oklahoma Sooners are college football's version of the Mike D'Antoni/Steve Nash led Phoenix Suns from the middle of this decade. They score a lot of points. They're fun to watch. They never made it to the NBA Finals.

Yes, this Sooner team made it to the college football equivalent of the NBA Finals, but only because they played in a conference full of other Suns type teams.

Most NBA fans are familiar with those Suns teams. They won 55-60 games while scoring a bajilion points, but then ran into the defensive minded San Antonio Spurs in the playoffs. The Spurs slowed the game down and Phoenix's inability to play a slow tempo, half court game became their undoing.

No doubt, the Florida Gators are going to slow the game down. They're going to run. And run. And run. And run. Oklahoma is down a defensive tackle and might have to start their third string middle line backer. If Urban Meyer has his way, Tim Tebow will put the ball in the air 15 times at the most.

The ingenious part of this strategy is it takes OU's biggest offensive advantage (their fast paced offense) and turns it against them. If Florida is going on 12 play, seven minute scoring drives, can OU afford to run the up tempo offense and risk putting the OU defense back out on the field? Oklahoma is going to have to slow down to give their defense time to rest.

Most people believe that the OU offense vs. the UF defense is the key matchup, but in reality this game will be decided by how well OU defends UF's rushing attack.