With the Big Ten and SEC champions set to face off in the national championship game for a second straight year, college football observers looked to yesterday’s pair of games between the conferences for some clue as to what will happen between LSU and Ohio State on January 7. Though the conferences split the pair, with Tennessee holding off Wisconsin in the Outback and Michigan topping Florida in the Capital One, the results suggested the idea that the Big Ten’s top teams can compete with those from the SEC.

The conference’s reputation needed the boost. Despite winning two of three bowl matchups between the leagues last year, Florida was so dominant in a 41–14 pasting of Ohio State in the national championship — making the Buckeyes look slow in the process — that it served to reinforce the notion that Big Ten teams are too slow to compete with the more athletic squads from the SEC.

This year’s Florida team wasn’t nearly as good — not after losing nine starters on defense and 14 overall — but they still had the Heisman Trophy winner in quarterback Tim Tebow and the spread-option offense that has given Michigan fits over the years. Few expected Michigan, smarting from a fourth-straight loss to Ohio State and a lengthy coaching search, to earn its first bowl win since the 2002 season against the Gators.

But right from the opening snap, it was clear that this was a more aggressive Michigan team. The Wolverines scrapped their typical conservative approach in Lloyd Carr’s final game, opening the contest in a four-receiver, shotgun spread despite being pinned inside their own 10-yard line. Operating almost entirely from the shotgun, Chad Henne led the Wolverines on an 11-play, 94-yard drive that set the tone for the contest.

One could not blame incoming Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez, who watched the game from the sidelines, if he cracked a smile. Rodriguez and Florida’s Urban Meyer are considered the premier architects of the spread offense. Defensively, the Wolverines also displayed an aggressiveness that was atypical. They attacked Tebow throughout the game, knocking him down regularly and limiting his effectiveness in the run game. Even in the final minutes, and protecting a one-score lead, Michigan brought pressure against Tebow instead of sitting back in soft zones, moves that have cost the Wolverines more than a few wins over the past several seasons.

The defensive approach was in direct contrast to its passive attempts to contain spread teams — with disastrous results against Appalachian State and Oregon to open the year — by preventing the big play. Against Florida, Michigan blitzed with regularity and allowed plenty of big plays, but prevented the Gators from stringing together sustained drives. Michigan also excelled on third down on both sides of the ball, converting 10 of 15 chances on offense, while limiting Tebow and the Gators to 2 of 11.

Tebow was knocked to the turf nearly every time he dropped back in the second half, preventing the first-ever sophomore Heisman winner from stepping into his throws. With one final chance to win the game, Tebow made four straight incomplete throws after being harassed on every play.

Still, the loss could not be blamed on Tebow, who threw for three touchdowns on 17-of-33, passing for 154 yards. He ran for 58 yards and another score. This defeat could be laid squarely at the feet of Florida’s defense. The front seven failed to generate pressure on Michigan quarterback Henne, and the secondary was completely torched by Wolverine receivers Mario Manningham and Adrian Arrington. As a result, Henne, a four-year starter who was 0–3 in bowl games in his career, completed 25 of 39 throws for a career-best 373 yards, with three touchdowns and two interceptions. Manningham and Arrington combined to catch 14 balls for 231 yards and all three scores.

The game should not have been close. Michigan out-gained the Gators, 543–401, and won despite finishing minus-four in turnover margin. Worse, three of the turnovers came inside the Florida five-yard line — two on fumbles by the normally sure-handed Mike Hart. The senior, Michigan’s all-time leading rusher, nearly wore the goat horns after losing fumbles for only the second and third time in his Michigan career.

In carving up Florida’s defense, the Wolverines showed what they might have accomplished had Henne and Hart been at full strength at the end of the year, when they limped through losses to Wisconsin and Ohio State that kept Michigan out of the Rose Bowl. They also sent Carr out a winner, giving the retiring coach a ride to midfield following the game.

Michigan’s performance also made serious weaknesses apparent in the Florida defense that may be an impediment to an expected national title run next year.

Elsewhere, Tennessee avoided a second-straight Outback Bowl loss by beating Wisconsin. Senior quarterback Erik Ainge, the goat in Tennessee’s SEC championship game loss to LSU a month ago, earned the MVP award by completing 25 of 43 passes for 363 yards and a pair of touchdowns. He did not throw an interception. Tennessee also put a beating on Wisconsin quarterback Tyler Donovan, who was knocked out of the game multiple times but almost led the Badgers back from a 14-point deficit. Trailing 21–17, Wisconsin was stopped on downs at the Tennessee 10 midway through the fourth quarter. Then, on Wisconsin’s last possession, Donovan was intercepted in the end zone in the game’s final minute.

The Gator Bowl had the day’s best finish, as Texas Tech rallied from a 14-point deficit in the fourth quarter to beat Virginia on a field goal in the final seconds, 31–28. It was the second-straight dramatic bowl comeback for Tech, which trailed Minnesota in last season’s Insight Bowl before coming all the way back to win.

Through the first three quarters, quarterback Graham Harrell and the potent Texas Tech offense rolled up yardage but few points. But the Red Raiders scored the game’s final 17 points, including a pair of scoring passes by Harrell and a 41-yard field goal by Alex Trlica with seven seconds remaining.

Missouri tailback Tony Temple turned in the best individual performance on New Year’s Day. Temple established a pair of Cotton Bowl records by rushing for 281 yards and four touchdowns as the Tigers routed Arkansas, 38–7. Missouri — which has as legitimate a gripe about being left out of the BCS bowls as anyone — put its disappointment aside against the Razorbacks.

Although Missouri’s prolific quarterback, Heisman finalist Chase Daniel, was limited to just 136 yards passing, the Tigers hardly needed him with Temple running over, around, and through the Arkansas defenders. In doing so, he badly outplayed Arkansas’s Heisman finalist, two-time runner-up Darren McFadden.

McFadden, the subject of eligibility rumors earlier in the week after a report that an agent had purchased a vehicle for him, was held to a quiet 105 yards and one touchdown. He also did not attempt a single pass from Arkansas’s preferred “Wild Hog” formation, in which McFadden takes the shotgun snap from center.

In the first of the BCS bowls, USC easily handled Illinois, 49–17. USC was the largest favorite of the entire bowl season, Illinois having only received an invite thanks to the desire of the Rose Bowl to maintain its traditional Big Ten-Pac-10 matchup.

USC raced to a 21–0 lead, and withstood a brief Illinois rally before the Illini did themselves in with turnovers. Rashard Mendenhall broke off a 79-yard scoring run to make it 21–10, and Illinois was nearing another touchdown when Jacob Willis fumbled and USC recovered in its own end zone. The Trojans responded with an 80-yard touchdown drive. Illinois turned it over on each of its next two possessions, leading to two more USC touchdowns.

The decisive victory leaves USC with a feeling of “what if” for the second consecutive year. The Trojans again narrowly missed qualifying for the national-title game only to go on and showcase their immense talent in a win in Pasadena.

Note: The Hawaii-Georgia Sugar Bowl took place too late for this edition.

New Year’s Scorecard

OUTBACK BOWL

(16) TENNESSEE . . . . . . . . . . 21 (18) WISCONSIN. . . . . . . . . . . 17

COTTON BOWL

(7) MISSOURI . . . . . . . . . . . . .38 (25) ARKANSAS . . . . . . . . . . . 7

CAPITAL ONE BOWL

MICHIGAN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41 (9) FLORIDA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

GATOR BOWL

TEXAS TECH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 (21) VIRGINIA. . . . . . . . . . . . . .28

ROSE BOWL

(13) ILLINOIS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 (6) USC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49

West Virginia Faces Uphill Bowl Battle

NO. 9 WEST VIRGINIA (10–2) VS. NO. 4 OKLAHOMA (11–2)
TONIGHT, 8 P.M., FOX

The focus on the Fiesta Bowl should be on the explosive offenses of both teams. Instead, the coaching uncertainty at West Virginia has dominated the run-up to the game.

While teams frequently play bowl games during a coaching transition period, rarely does it happen to a team in a BCS game, and rarely is a team’s situation completely unsettled, as is West Virginia’s. Ever since Rich Rodriguez — who pioneered the Mountaineers’ spread-option offense — announced he was leaving for Michigan, the focus in Morgantown has remained more on the former coach than the next one. Behind-the-scenes wrangling over the $4 million buyout of Rodriguez’s West Virginia contract has led to the university suing its former coach, even as they continue to search for a replacement. If the distractions arising from the athletic department — and the built-in excuses it sometimes offers players — weren’t bad enough, the trend of teams in similar circumstances this bowl season doesn’t offer much hope.

Following yesterday’s play, seven of eight teams that had undergone a coaching change since the end of the regular season lost their bowl games. Coincidentally, only Michigan —which beat Florida in Lloyd Carr’s final game before giving way to Rodriguez — bucked the trend.

The task of getting the Mountaineers ready to play against Oklahoma falls to interim coach Bill Stewart, since Rodriguez took some of his assistants (including offensive coordinator Calvin Magee) with him to Ann Arbor. Still, he left behind plenty of talent, including quarterback Pat White and tailback Steve Slaton. White should be healthy again after suffering a thumb injury in the Mountaineers’ season-ending loss to Pittsburgh.

If not for that loss, in which West Virginia was a 28-point favorite at home, Rodriguez might well still be the coach, and the Mountaineers for certain would be playing for the national championship instead of the Fiesta Bowl.

It is doubtful Oklahoma has much sympathy for West Virginia’s plight. The Sooners felt they were deserving of consideration for the national-title game as well, after winning the Big 12 with an 11–2 record — the same as LSU. But then the losses came, to Colorado and Texas Tech, which, combined with the weakness of the Big 12 as compared to the SEC, relegated the Sooners to their second straight trip to the Fiesta.

It’s not a game that holds pleasant memories, as Oklahoma was upset by Boise State in overtime in last year’s game. Although Boise won using a bevy of trick plays, they also pushed a somewhat disinterested Oklahoma up and down the field for much of the contest.

Bob Stoops might have used the film of that game as preparation for this one, in which his seventh-ranked rush defense will have its hands full with West Virginia’s fourth-ranked rush offense. Statistically, the matchup of Oklahoma’s offense against West Virginia’s defense would also appear to be a close one, but the Sooners represent a far bigger offensive threat than the Mountaineers have faced this season.

Oklahoma’s offensive balance — with Allen Patrick rushing and standout quarterback Sam Bradford passing — is what gives the Sooners the edge in this game. The storm clouds currently hanging over West Virginia won’t determine the outcome of the contest, but they certainly won’t help the Mountaineers’ cause.

Mr. Levine is a writer for FootballOutsiders.com.