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View Full Version : Yahoo - Doc 5: Best national championship runners-up — No. 4 Oklahoma (Dr. Saturday)



Jenni Carlson
4/1/2014, 05:31 PM
This offseason we will count down various topics from Monday through Friday, bringing you the top five of the important and definitely some not so important issues in college football. It's the Doc Five, every week until we will thankfully have actual games to discuss. TOP FIVE NATIONAL CHAMPION RUNNER-UPS NO. 4 OKLAHOMA, 2008 The 2009 BCS National Championship might have been one of the most controversial of the BCS era. Several teams deserved to play in the championship game — Texas (12-1), Utah (13-0) and USC (12-1) — but in the end, Florida (13-1) and Oklahoma (12-2) squared off in what ended up being a less-than-exciting affair between former Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and current Heisman winner Sam Bradford. Florida came away with a 24-14 victory in a choppy game, leaving many, especially the aforementioned teams, wondering if there could have been better matchup. Many might disagree with placing Oklahoma on this list, especially since it had two losses. It’s true that any of the aforementioned teams could have been No. 4 on this week’s Doc 5, but it says something that Oklahoma was able to climb over all of those teams (regardless of what you think of the polls) and win its division (in a historical three-way division tiebreaker), win its conference and come close to winning a national title. This was not a team that lucked into the national title game. Despite losing 45-35 to rival Texas, the Sooners dominated the bulk of its competition. Behind Bradford, Oklahoma had the No. 1 scoring offense in the country with 54 points per game and ranked third in total offense with 562.08 yards per game. Bradford helped the Sooners to the No. 3 passing offense and the nation’s best passing efficiency. The Sooners scored more than 60 points in each of its final five games, and three of those games were against ranked teams. With the exception of Texas, Oklahoma defeated regular season ranked opponents by an average of 28.8 points. Even though there was controversy about Oklahoma's BCS National Championship game appearance, it’s fair to say Oklahoma was one of the most offensively dominant runners-up in the BCS era that ran into one of the nation’s most formidable defenses in Florida. - - - - - - - Graham Watson is the editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter Follow @YahooDrSaturday

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