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Five of our eight writers predict that Urban Meyer will lift
another crystal football tonight.
Ron Schwane/Icon SMI

Sweep contributors offer their quick picks for tonight's BCS National Championship Game:

Stewart Mandel: Florida 45, Oklahoma 27
Tim Tebow and the Gators' plethora of speed guys will exploit Oklahoma's suspect defenders in space, and for the first time since Texas, the Sooners will be facing a defense that can slow then down a bit.

Andy Staples: Oklahoma 45, Florida 38
Both offenses will score their share of points, and punts should be few and far between. The winner will force turnovers on defense and protect the ball on offense, and Oklahoma has done that better than anyone this season.

Cory McCartney: Florida 38, Oklahoma 35
With all the offensive firepower, somebody's going to have to get a big play on defense to win this thing, and that somebody is the Gators. The young Florida defense may, at times, get winded by the breakneck pace of the Sooners' no-huddle attack, but a group that had 34 interceptions will find a way to force Sam Bradford into at least one uncharacteristic mistake.

Arash Markazi: Oklahoma 38, Florida 35
I don't see any defense in the country being able to stop this Oklahoma offense. The Sooners set an NCAA record by scoring 60 points in five straight games and broke Hawaii's single-season scoring record of 656 in one less game by putting up a mind-boggling 702 points. They won't hang "half a hundred," as Barry Switzer used to famously say, but they'll hang just enough on Florida to return the "Big Game" moniker back to Bob Stoops' name.

Gennaro Filice: Florida 45, Oklahoma 35
Boasting the No. 3 scoring offense and the No. 4 scoring defense, Florida certainly the more complete team. And in a battle between the last two Heisman Trophy winners, I'm rolling with the 2007 recipient, Tim Tebow, who will be the best player on the field. A healthy Percy Harvin is just the icing on the cake. Texas fans may recognize my predicted score ...

The Doobie Brothers headlining the halftime show at the Orange Bowl? Is it 1973?
AP

"Bill, strange things are afoot at the Circle-K."
--Ted (Keanu Reeves), Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

The bowl season has had its collection of odd occurrences and while they have yet to include Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted Theodore Logan and a time-traveling phone booth, strange things have, indeed, been afoot. The Tenth Power has waded through the hours, upon hours of bowl games (in which, despite the Football Bowl Association's insistence, only half the teams actually win) to bring you the 10 most absurd stories/moments of the bowl season.

1. The Doobie Brothers do the Orange Bowl. What better way to emphasize a game that nobody wants to watch anymore than to use a band that nobody wants to see anymore. Apparently Journey and the Filipino Steve Perry, like teams that can pull ratings, were unavailable.

2. Tim Tebow goes Muslim. As if we needed another reason why we can't wait for FOX to unload the BCS games -- what with them having the illustrious Chris Rose go from the Hooters International Swimsuit Pageant to serving as your BCS host -- the network outdid itself with this goof (though it's been noted it was seen by tens of people). When they showed Cincinnati's offensive starters, Tebow's face was mistakenly used for right tackle Khalil El-Amin.

3. Rey Maualuga gets down on it, gets down on it. For all the punishment we've seen the USC All-America linebacker inflict on the field, who would have known that deep beneath that No. 58 jersey beats the heart of a guy who just wants to dance. Rey got down with an unsuspecting Erin Andrews just before the Rose Bowl.

Will Percy Harvin and Tim Tebow be back next season?
AP

Jay Christensen produces The Wiz Of Odds.

• Micael DiRocco, Florida Times-Union: Florida's Tim Tebow, Brandon Spikes and Percy Harvin will announce whether they will leave school early for the NFL Draft within a week after the title game. The three, however, have already had discussions about possibly doing something the Gators' '04s basketball stars did in 2006: returning as a group.

• Gary Klein, Los Angeles Times: USC said linebacker Rey Maualuga has issued an apology to ESPN's Erin Andrews for dancing behind the sideline reporter at last week's Rose Bowl.

• Kevin Donahue, FanBlogs: Is this the last of the crystal ball trophies? BCS trophy maker Waterford Wedgwood PLC has filed for bankruptcy.

• David Thomas, Fort Worth Star-Telegram: With only one bowl game remaining, there are a lot of questions. Example: Oregon State 3, Pittsburgh 0. How could a bowl sponsored by a cologne stink?

• Paul Newberry, Associated Press: Given its success, it's easy to see why the Southeastern Conference has become the league everyone else loves to hate. These guys don't mind tooting their own horn, either, which only adds to the hard feelings emanating from the rest of the country.

Florida QB Tim Tebow had his way with LSU this season, throwing for 210 yards and totaling three touchdowns.
Heinz Kluetmeier/SI

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Oklahoma cornerback Dominique Franks told reporters Sunday that he thinks Florida quarterback Tim Tebow would be the fourth-best quarterback in the Big 12. Safety Nic Harris took that assessment a step further. "Top seven," Harris said.

The Sooners should understand what they might have unleashed. Tebow may seem all sweetness and light when he's ministering to prisoners or circumcising villagers, but the junior takes a more Old Testament approach to those who call him out. Four times in the past two seasons, an opponent has called out Tebow. Twice, Tebow has humbled the opponent. Twice, Tebow has been smote. So the odds are about 50/50 that the Sooners have awakened a snarling beast.

Today, we'll examine the times Tebow has been called out in the past and what has happened when the quarterback has met his critics on the field.

Date: October 2007
Caller: LSU fans
Message: Too vile to print.
Result: Some enterprising LSU fan found Tebow's cell phone number, and the Geaux Tigers crowd had a field day. In the process of helping the Gators to an early lead when the teams faced off at Tiger Stadium, Tebow scored a touchdown and raised his hand to his earhole to mimic a phone call. LSU fans got the last laugh, though. Jacob Hester scored with a little more than a minute remaining to lift the Tigers to a 28-24 win and keep them on track to win the national title.

Urban Meyer (left) and Bob Stoops (right) are both shooting for their second BCS national championship trophy.
AP

FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- I'm told there will in fact be a football game played here at some point, but in the meantime ... one more set of press conferences!

Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops and Florida coach Urban Meyer met with the media Wednesday morning prior to Thursday night's BCS National Championship Game. You may have already read that Meyer commended the coaches of USC, Utah and Texas for stating their cases for No. 1 votes ("That's absolutely what they should do," he said). Here were some other highlights:

• Meyer said that "... if we had to play this game any earlier than January 8, I don't think we'd have a chance to win because of our injury situation. We lost four players in that [Dec. 6] Alabama game, and Percy Harvin and [DT] Brandon Antwine didn't play. The good thing is, [on Thursday] we should be pretty healthy."

That's not the only reason he's happy for the later game date. "It's great for recruiting," he said. "Every night you walk home, flip [the TV] on, there's a commercial for the Gators. "

• Meyer has stressed on numerous occasions this week the importance of Florida's kick and punt teams pinning Oklahoma as deep as possible in its own territory, and that the Gators have worked harder on kick coverage the past three weeks than in any other bowl game. "This game is all about making a team drive the length of the field and not giving them the short ones," he said.