FanNation - The Republic of Sport

Any successful athletic program naturally accumulates its share of detractors.  Many of those detractors feel compelled to downplay any part of that successful program – in other words, the detractors seek to belittle or trivialize the accomplishments of anyone associated with that successful program.

Arguably the most visible part of any football program is the quarterback.  Redshirt sophomore Sam Bradford was OU’s starting quarterback for the whole season.  His passing numbers for the season (not including the bowl game) are simply outrageous for the year:

Attempts: 442        Average per game: 34.0
Completions: 302    Average per game: 23.2
Interceptions: 6    Average per game: 0.46
Average Passing Efficiency: 186.28
Yards:  4464        Average per game: 343.4
Touchdowns: 48    Average per game: 3.69

These gaudy numbers earned him the Davey O’Brien and Heisman awards for 2008.  Yet, his performance in the national championship game against Florida in Miami (essentially, a home game for the Gators) on 8 January was rather below his average numbers:

Attempts:  41
Completions: 26
Interceptions: 2
Yards: 256
Touchdowns: 2

Although these numbers aren’t abysmally bad, and in fact represent passing numbers nearly identical with those of Tim Tebow for the game, the winning QB, they indicate a drop-off, especially in offensive scoring.  OU detractors have chosen to describe the game in terms of Bradford having been "exposed" by Florida. 

Bradford had to throw at the end of the game when behind, partly because the running game had been slowed (but not stopped) by the Florida defense, so he wound up with more attempts and completions than his average.  OU hadn’t scored less than 35 points in any game going into the NC game.  Bradford played reasonably well, but obviously not well enough to carry his team to victory.

It seems clear to me that what happened was:

1. two big goal line stands by the Florida defense in the first half, and
2. a fourth quarter where the OU defense couldn’t stop Florida’s offense on 3rd down.

It’s my observation that Sam Bradford is primarily a pocket passer.  No defense in the Big-12 was capable of stopping his passing offense during the season, and OU had generated a reasonable running game against most of the teams they played, thereby giving the advantage to Bradford's passing.  TCU had stopped the running game but was unable to prevent Bradford from success.  Even in their only loss during the season to the hated Texas team, which also stopped OU's running game, Bradford threw 5 touchdowns against what was probably the best Big-12 defense they faced all year.  The Florida defense was better than any OU faced all year – in fact, good enough to bend but not break in the first half and pressured Bradford into making some uncharacteristic mistakes.  Even at that, one of his interceptions – that near the Florida goal line near the end of the first half – was a lucky break for Florida, and could just as well have been incomplete.  The other interception was the result of an outstanding defensive play by the Florida defensive back, taking away a long completion to Juaquin Eglasias.

Even NFL-caliber QBs, such as Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, generally don't do well when they’re put under enough defensive pressure.  And sometimes, the defense just makes the plays and the offense doesn’t.  The difference between Tebow and Bradford is that Tebow is an elusive and a powerful running QB, as well as a reasonably good passer.  I don’t think Bradford, as primarily a pocket passer, was “exposed” – I think the essence of this game is that Bradford’s offensive line gave only an average performance against an excellent Forida defense.  As the O-line goes, so goes a pocket quarterback.  Florida’s defense outplayed OU’s offense, and their offense wore down the OU defense late in the game.

Tebow was put under comparable pressure, but his elusiveness and power as a running back gave his team the edge, as many Florida fans had predicted.  In fact, those same fans said OU wouldn’t put up the same offensive numbers against the Florida defense.  And they were right.

But Sam Bradford wasn’t “exposed” by this game performance as a mediocre quarterback.  No, sir.