Every conference sets themselves up for a certain system. You are right. Gotta play the games against the right people and then see what happens.
What do Nick Saban, Mack Brown, Les Miles, Bob Stoops, and Urban Meyer all have in common? All have won a NC in the past 10 years. (Meyer 2) ALL HAVE DIFFERENT STYLES and so you never know what you'll get. Bradford and Tebows numbers were both down from the norm last year but both players moved the ball effectively against one another. Considering the Sooners left 14 points on the feild in the first half, and the game was still anyones to win late in the fourth, the difference was Tebow and his ability to run the ball as a QB. Point is, when you have two great teams and two different styles of play, it's gonna be a hard nosed game either way. X-Factor is that when you have so much time off between games, you don't really get what you came to know while they were all still in the swing. (OUs two turnovers inside the 5 yl are an example) You could tell OU had problems getting plays in to the offense. I have heard coach after coach after coach, and player after player after player say that this is true, especially for these young kids. This is why Bowl Season is so stupid to me. I watch the NC game and that's it unless I just happen to be where a game is on. I'll watch OU if it's just on or if it's against an interesting opponent.
BUT, 'historically' in your scenario only goes back about 10 to 12 years. The teams that make up the Big 12 used to be mostly run oriented. OU ran the wishbone for a long time. It's just been since Stoops arived that they have gone to the air. When Spurrier brought the Passing game to the SEC, he OWNED the SEC. When he left, back to boring offense. Sure, it may be considered Pro-Style offense, but the Pros can pull it off sooooo much better (because their all pros) than the kids. One conference passing 70% of the time, and the other running 70% of the time is gonna scew some numbers. Not only because of the percentages of pass to run but because of the fact that the passing conference can just pass better and the running conference can just run better. They get more reps doing it. Some great teams can do them both very well. Head to head, Bradford passes much better than Tebow, and Tebow runs MUCH better than Bradford.
Last year OU got beat by the better all around team. I don't feel so bad about it because OU gave them a run and maybe even a bit of a scare. Losing those two touchdowns inside the five both times. (Not saying it wasn't Floridas 'D' stepping up because it was) Those are usually scores though. OU held Florida to their lowest output than anyone could the whole year when everyone was saying the Defense in the Big 12 was too weak to handle them.
All around point is that every year is a different year. And different conferences have different styles of play. The SEC has been top heavy for a few years now, not unlike the NFC was for 13 years in a row. I'll be curious to see what happens after Tebow. People can say Tebow won his 1st NC on the bench behind Chris Leak but Tebow was directly responsible for at LEAST one one win and helped tremendously during the course of the season. If your gonna say Tebow has two NCs then you have to acknowledge that he was integral in theire first. (I've heard a lot of Tebow haters say that he wasn't) I know he was. I'd just like to see how Meyer does without Tebow. Let's face it, Florida may very well not have won the first NC and I KNOW they don't last year without Tebow.
And if any of you read all of this, then you are now smarter than you were 5 minutes ago.
