..."we'll always have '02." (Say like "we'll always have Paris".) It makes the 2002 National Championship a bit sweeter by virtue of the scarcity principle.
Well, except for the defense, offense and coaching, the Bucks did well. There's no way to sugercoat the wallop. Not surprisingly, Bill Luse is happy. Florida seemed to just have a crushing defensive line and when you have that you've got a lot. Maybe not everything, but you have a lot. Their offense hit a bunch of dink passes which turned out to be extremely effective. A good strategy. Great defenses win championships, and the year of the OSU withering defense was 2002, not this year. This year's seemed good, but perhaps never got really tested until Michigan whereupon they gave up 30-something points. We found out yesterday the Bucks defense wasn't as good as advertised, and if you get behind early against a good team it makes it much harder to put points on the board.
The biggest surprise to me was how Coach Tressel, in a move that seemed to communicate panic, went for a 4th & 1. Maybe he knew he didn't have a big quiver of halftime adjustments so he needed to take chances. From the Dispatch:
But late in the first half...the Ohio State coach turned into the reincarnation of Yortuk Festruna, one of Saturday Night Live’s wild and crazy guys.
Tressel, always the definition of calculated cool, turned into a riverboat gambler.
Florida was leading 24-14 in the waning minutes of the first half when Festruna, er, Tressel decided to go for it on fourth-and-1 from his 29-yard line. Chris Wells was stopped short — isn’t the punt still the most important play in football? — and four plays later, a field goal by Chris Hetland gave the Gators a 27-14 lead...Whether it gave Florida momentum is debatable, but on Ohio State’s first play after the kickoff, Troy Smith lost a fumble at his 14 and the Gators quickly scored on a Tim Tebow pass to Andre Caldwell to take a 34-14 lead.
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