Gators, Tebow tough to beat

A perfectly good national championship game was wasted Saturday night at the Georgia Dome.

It was wasted because it was only a national play-in and you couldn’t imagine any other upcoming game this season being any better.

No. 2 Florida’s 31-20 victory over No. 1 Alabama could have gloriously capped the 2008 season and no one outside of Austin, Norman, Los Angeles and maybe Salt Lake City could have complained.

“It felt like a championship game to me,” Florida cornerback Joe Haden, his sprained left ankle tucked in a protective boot, said outside the Gators’ locker room.

The Bowl Championship Series title game in South Florida on Jan. 8 will have a tough time matching, in intensity and athleticism, what the Southeastern Conference offered up as an appetizer plate in front of 75,892.

Florida (12-1) is now destined for a probable BCS showdown against Oklahoma, a big winner over Missouri in Saturday’s Big 12 Conference championship game.

The Gators could not have booked passage without junior quarterback Tim Tebow, destiny’s child.

Trailing by three points in the fourth quarter, Tebow led the Gators on scoring drives of 62 and 65 drives to clinch the victory, make his case for winning a second straight Heisman Trophy, and snuff out Alabama’s title hopes and dreams.

Playing short-handed with do-everything receiver Percy Harvin out with an ankle injury, and trailing, 20-17, when the teams switched sides for the fourth quarter, Tebow stuck his head in the huddle and let everyone know who was in charge.

It was first down at the Florida 38.

“He was very intense,” receiver Louis Murphy said. “He was ready to win the game. I was intense with him.”

Eleven plays later, freshman track star Jeff Demps took a Tebow pitch and hurtled into the end zone on a one-yard scoring run with 9:21 left.

Than, after the Florida defense forced an Alabama punt, Tebow led a 65-yard drive that ended with a five-yard scoring pass to Riley Cooper with 2:50 remaining.

“That fourth quarter was vintage Tim Tebow,” Florida Coach Urban Meyer said. “I don’t know the entire history of the University of Florida, but I can imagine that [first] drive and that fourth quarter will go down as one of the greatest ever.”

Alabama had staggered Florida in the third quarter with a touchdown and field goal to take the lead.

“I felt as if we were talking some body blows,” Meyer admitted.

But it was Tebow who finished with a strong left jab and then an uppercut.

He led his team with 57 rushing yards and passed for 216 yards and three touchdowns.

Tebow was the difference in a game where almost everything else was even. Florida had 19 first downs to Alabama’s 18 and 358 total yards to the Crimson Tide’s 323.

What about his ability to seemingly will his team to wins?

“I don’t think it necessarily was just my will,” Tebow humbly said afterward.

Alabama’s first loss of the season turned out to be an elimination game.

Sorry, but that’s the way the BCS goes.

In a game where two or three plays turned momentum, reality hit hard.

“I feel responsible for every thing that didn’t go right,” Alabama Coach Nick Saban said.

Florida entered the weekend ranked No. 2 in the Associated Press poll but only fourth in the BCS standings, yet Saturday’s win against the BCS’s top team should vault the Gators into the top two when today’s final standings are released at 5:20 Pacific Time.

Florida will almost certainly play Oklahoma, unless things get really weird.

The BCS bowl matchups appear set:

BCS championship: Florida vs. Oklahoma.

Rose: USC vs. Penn State

Fiesta: Texas vs. Ohio State

Sugar: Utah vs. Alabama

Orange: Cincinnati vs. Virginia Tech.

This is no time for voters in the USA Today and Harris polls to get cute.

Florida was No. 4 in the coaches’ poll and needs to be exalted to No. 1 to take the mystery out of the BCS standings and ratify the Gators’ trip to the championship game.

You can argue about Oklahoma, but what’s done is done. The Sooners jumped Texas into the No. 2 BCS spot last week and it would be hard to envision voters and BCS computers dropping Oklahoma after its rout against Missouri.

Texas, which beat Oklahoma this year, has every right to be angry, as evidenced by the hired plane that trailed a banner reading “45-35” over Norman this week.

But at least we got the right leagues in the game. As messed up as the BCS has been and will be, the champions of the SEC and Big 12 deserve to play each other for this year’s grand prize.

Alabamans who would argue the Crimson Tide’s spirited effort warrants a rematch might have a case, but they need to settle it out of court.

Alabama (12-1) had its chance to make the title game Saturday.

Texas has to hope it can confuse enough pollsters and BCS computers to either re-jump Oklahoma in the BCS or wedge Florida out to earn a rematch against the Sooners.

Florida vs. Texas would be fine by me, but please, BCS gods, we don’t need a stinking rematch.

The fairest way to adjudicate the season would be for Oklahoma to win the BCS title and for AP voters to vote its share of the title to Texas.

Anyone have a problem with that?

Well, actually, Tim Tebow might.

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chris.dufresne@latimes.com