Buckeyes not up to speed

GLENDALE, Ariz. -- Was I the guy who suggested that if clearly unworthy Florida somehow qualified for the BCS Championship Game, troops should be stationed outside the stadium to prevent the Gators from entering?

Why, yes I was, and wouldn't Ohio State have appreciated seeing those soldiers show up last night? Where is Northwestern when you need it?

Urban Meyer's stellar lobbying job for his Gators turned out to be well worth the effort, as his team overwhelmed a clueless and defenseless Ohio State team last night by a 41-14 score to deliver the school's second major national championship in a year. I guess I'll have to admit the Gators belonged in the game after all.

How dominant was Florida, you ask? Try this: Ohio State had 82 yards in total offense, or a pitiful 2.2 yards per play. Or try this: Ohio State coach Jim Tressel was so desperate by the late stages of the second quarter that he had his team go for it on fourth and 1 at his own 29, trailing, 24-14. Predictably, tailback Chris Wells was stuffed for no gain. Less predictably, beleaguered Chris Hetland, a legendarily inept kicker (4 for 13 on field goals coming in), banged home a 40-yarder, his second impressive kick of the game (he previously nailed a 42-yarder).

From St. Augustine to Key West, Floridians had to be thinking the same thing: "If Chris Hetland is kicking 40-yarders, it really is our night."

It sure didn't start out that way.

The concept of a Florida runaway was no more imaginable than a Humanitarian of the Year Award for O.J. Simpson when Ohio State's Ted Ginn Jr. took the opening kickoff, headed upfield, veered to his right, and sprinted untouched down the sideline for a 93-yard return. Sixteen seconds into the game, all those red-clad Ohio State fans were the ones anticipating the rout.

It appeared to be a pretty solid statement.

Speed? You want speed? Guess what, Gator breath. We've got speed. Yeah, well, whatever, said the Gators. Seven plays later, the game was tied. For the one and only time. Florida went 46 yards in seven plays, the last being a 14-yard touchdown pass from Chris Leak to senior Dallas Baker, a very impressive receiver.

The Buckeyes contributed to their own demise with a foolish personal foul, but Florida would have come up with those additional 15 yards anyway. The simple truth of the matter is that it would take Ohio State 20 minutes into the game before it could make the SEC champs relinquish the football without scoring . By that time, the Buckeyes were trailing, 21-14. And what did they do to celebrate finally getting a defensive stop that mattered?

They went three and out, that's what. It was that kind of night for the Buckeyes.

Ginn's jaunt represented the sum total of Ohio State's "playmaking." Heisman Trophy winner Troy Smith, a quarterback with a certified reputation as one who comes up biggest in the big games, was practically a no-show, completing a total of four passes in 14 attempts for 35 yards. His rushing yardage (10 carries for minus-29) was irrelevant and useless, thanks in large measure to Florida sacks. His dreary evening also included a strip sack/fumble that led to a Florida second-quarter touchdown.

That brings us back to the eternally popular topic of speed.

Much was made of the idea that Ohio State was no old-fashioned Big 10 team, that one reason the Buckeyes had come into this game at 13-0 was that they had the kind of speed that would impress even an SEC team.

They didn't.

Smith found out first-hand just how disruptive Florida's speed could be in the very first quarter when he was unable to run away from defensive end Derrick Harvey, who chased the Ohio State QB and caught him on an attempt to scramble to his left. Harvey goes 6-5 and a listed 262.

Florida is an odd championship team in some respects, starting with the guy taking the snaps. Coach Meyer won his first national championship using not one, not two, but three quarterbacks, Leak being a passer, freshman Tim Tebow being a -- I know this sounds crazy -- power runner, and Percy Harvin (who the program says is a wide receiver) being a shifty kind of runner. If having two quarterbacks is, as people have long said, like having no quarterbacks, then what is having three? Apparently, it's a blueprint for a national championship.

Meyer is a registered offensive guru, as some of you already know. He came to Florida from Utah, where his teams routinely racked up a million yards or so a game, and though the Gators occasionally had trouble scoring this year (barely averaging 20 points a game in one five-game stretch), they put up 38 in the SEC championship game against Arkansas and were way too much for Ohio State to handle. If you didn't know better, you would have thought this was one of those nonconference "guarantee" games against Sam Houston State or somebody, not the national championship game in which Florida was a substantial underdog.

Stand back now as the SEC bellows just how great it was, is, and always will be. And how are we going to argue? Florida may not even be better than LSU, at least the LSU that demolished Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl. We're going to have several months of I-Told-Ya-So's.

So after all these years, we finally have a school winning both the NCAA men's basketball title and the national football championship in the same year, and it isn't USC or Notre Dame, and it sure isn't Ohio State. Nope, it's Florida. Consider the odds on that one at the dawn of this century.

I hear the baseball team is pretty good, too.

Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is ryan@globe.com.