Florida versus Ohio State National Championship Game I was as disappointed as everyone when USC did not get to play in the January 2007 BCS Title Game to determine the 2006 National Champion. In hindsight I am sure that USC would have presented many of the same match up problems for Ohio State that Florida did with its overall team speed. None the less I watched the game and spent some time afterwards going through the game in great detail out of curiosity If you are interested in the gory details the files in the link below might be worth a look. Each file is about 5 MB's in size and will take a while to download depending upon your connection speed. It includes play by play pictures of formations and game summary information. Game Files For a general summary here are some other items of note: Florida actually only gained 370 yards in the game and averaged just 4.6 yards per play versus Ohio State which is a pretty low number. However they racked up 41 points for a variety of reasons. Field position was beneficial throughout the game for Florida. Due to two turnovers, and a stopped 4th down play Florida started several drives fairly deep in Ohio State territory. Each time the Gators capitalized and came away with points. Additionally Florida was very effective on offense converting on 26 of 37 pass attempts. More impressive than the Florida offense was the defensive effort and the complete shut down of the Ohio State offensive attack. For the game Ohio State only netted 82 yards on a measly 37 plays. Here are the main formations used in the game by Florida on offense. For simplicity I broke them down into two groups. One is a collection of Power Formations which were predominantly run instances. The second are the spread formations with multiple wide receivers in the game. Here are the spread type formations: Interestingly out of the 3WR formations Florida mainly ran the ball about 74% of the time (20 out of 27 times). The 4 and 5WR sets were mainly for passing (29 of 37) or 78% of the time. Below here is a summarized look at the formations used by Florida on offense. This table shows the overall run pass breakdown by formation and the yardage associated with those plays.  In total Florida did present a variety of different formation looks and incorporated motion into many plays. I have not indicated the use of motion here as that is difficult and it was fairly extensive in usage. In hindsight however behind all the motion they were running out of I Formation over 90% (12 out of 13 times) and the 3 WR sets about 74% of the time (20 out of 27 plays). In the more spread oriented 4 WR and 5 WR sets they threw 29 times versus only 8 runs (78% pass tendency). Florida did not seemed to concerned with hiding its run pass tendency by formation in hindsight.  But why bother when the execution worked as well as it did I suppose.  Ohio State could not stop the Gators from executing their base offense. Here is a look at just the basic run plays by Florida used in the game. They ran the ball 43 times for just 156 yards. However this level was enough to keep the chains moving and force Ohio State to defend against the run. Here is a similar look at just the passing plays at a high level: Most of the damage was done on simple slant routes to the inside middle of the field or short to medium out routes. The number one pass play in terms of frequency was a simple screen play to Percy Harvin coming in motion from a variety of different positions. Florida threw the ball 37 times and netted only 214 yards passing. Most of the throws were very short in nature. Here is a "main play" summary of what Florida did on offense. Despite all the motion and spread type formations they did the bulk of their damage on very basic football plays. Just 4 different play types accounted for 55% of the snaps in the game and 69% of the yards gained. So much for fancy play calling winning games. Florida won this game with defense and simple consistent execution on offense. On a different note in hindsight how did Florida stack up to USC stat wise in the 2006 season? Well it turns out the teams were pretty close in most comparisons. Here is a summary table of the high level statistics from the NCAA: NCAA Category USC Rank Stat Florida Rank Stat Comment Scoring Offense 18th 30.5 points 23rd 29.1 Points Neither offense was particularly flashy nor a points leader. Total Offense 21st 391.8 Yards 19th 397.1Yards Both teams averaged about the same number of total yards. Rush Offense 68th 128 Yards 38th 160 Yards Florida had more of a balanced attack and could successfully run the ball when needed. USC in contrast struggled at times. Pass Offense 14th 263.8 Yards 28th 236.1 Yards USC had a more polished air attack and relied upon this aspect more heavily during the season Scoring Defense 11th 15.2 Points 6th 13.5 Points Both teams were essentially top 10 scoring defenses highlighting the old adage about defense winning championships Total Defense 20th 295.8 Yards 6th 255.4 Yards Florida had a stronger overall defense in terms of yards allowed.  USC likely faced more sophisticated passing teams. Rush Defense 9th 91.1 Yards 5th 72.5 Yards Florida had a tougher run defense and faced stronger run teams during conference play. Pass Defense 64th 204.7 33rd 182.9 USC faced stronger passing attacks in conference play and yielded more yardage through the air on defense. Turnover Margin 38th +.31 37th +.36 Lowest performance of the Pete Carroll era at USC in this metric. Sacks 22nd 2.69 per game 35th 2.43 per game Neither team was in the top 20 although both finished strong towards the end of the year and in the final game of the season. 3rd Down Coversion Defense 68th 38.7% 26th 32.8% Neither team was top 20 in this metric and USC gave up too many 3rd and long conversions during the year. How might the game have turned out if USC had played Florida? We'll never know although I suspect it would have been an evenly matched contest. If USC had gotten past UCLA in the season finale however we still would not have seen this match up. USC would have faced undefeated Ohio State and Florida would have been relegated to another bowl game. Perhaps some day we will see a play off in NCAA Division I football. Until then it is all just fodder for internet chatter and debate.