The Battle For No. 1 Sunshine Supermen

BCS TITLE GAME

1/8
FLORIDA 41
OHIO STATE 14
AT GLENDALE, ARIZ.

Coach Urban Meyer's clever play-calling and twin-quarterback system maximized the skills of the Gators' speedy receivers and overwhelmed the Buckeyes' defense.

With his FLORIDA TEAMMATES REJOICING BELOW HIM, CHRIS LEAK MOUNTED THE STAGE AND acknowledged the blue-and-orange-clad mob chanting beyond the south end zone. In short order he would accept the trophy presented to the MVP of the BCS championship game. The 41?14 thumping of Ohio State had finally made an honest man of Leak, who as a cocksure high school senior in January 2003 stood before television cameras vowing his allegiance to Florida and predicting a kind of Gator Golden Age of multiple SEC and national championships. Through three seasons, exactly none of this had come to pass.

Even though Leak had thrown for 11,000 yards and 87 touch-downs entering the BCS game on Jan. 8, 2007, he had never fully captured the heart of Gator Nation. But then he took the field in the biggest game of his life and put on a show that sent a message to a national TV audience at the expense of his Buckeyes counterpart, a dazed and confused Troy Smith: This is how it's done.

Leak's performance—25 of 36 for 213 yards with one touch-down and no interceptions—was a masterpiece of equitable distribution. He completed passes to six receivers; handed off, pitched or otherwise dispatched the ball to four rushers; and kept the Buckeyes' defense off-balance all night.

More stunning than Ohio State's failure to stop (or even slow) Florida was the woeful showing by Smith, who completed 4 of 14 passes for 35 yards, with an interception and a fumble. He might as well have had his 25-pound Heisman Trophy tucked under his jersey for all the success he had escaping Gators defensive ends Derrick Harvey and Jarvis Moss, who combined for five sacks.

"Derrick, check this out!" Florida coach Urban Meyer shouted at Harvey, pointing to a stat sheet as they exited the postgame press conference. "Eighty-two! They had 82 yards of total offense!"

How could that happen? How could a team that had looked so bulletproof through an unbeaten regular season—ranked No. 1 since Week 1 and the winner of 19 straight games—be made to look so pedestrian on the brink of its second national title in five years?

It wasn't that complicated, Gators senior linebacker Brian Crum explained after the game, "This is a fast-ass team."