The 2009 FedEx

BCS National Championship Game The BCS National Championship Game, or BCS National Championship, was a postseason college football bowl game, used to determine a national champion of the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), first played in the 1998 college fo ...

was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

game played at

Dolphin Stadium Hard Rock Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium located in Miami Gardens, Florida. The stadium is the home field for the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League (NFL) and the Miami Hurricanes, the University of Miami's NCAA Division I colleg ...

Miami Gardens, Florida Miami Gardens is a city in north-central Miami-Dade County, Florida. It is located north of Downtown Miami with city boundaries that stretch from I-95 and Northeast 2nd Avenue to its east to Northwest 47th and Northwest 57th Avenues to its w ...

, on January 8, 2009. It was the national championship game for the

2008 NCAA Division I FBS football season The 2008 NCAA Division I FBS football season was the highest level of college football competition in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The regular season began on August 28, 2008 and ended on D ...

, and featured the second-ranked Florida Gators against the top-ranked

Oklahoma Sooners The Oklahoma Sooners are the athletic teams that represent the University of Oklahoma, located in Norman. The 19 men's and women's varsity teams are called the "Sooners", a reference to a nickname given to the early participants in the Land Ru ...

. The two participants were determined by the BCS Rankings to decide the BCS National Championship. Television coverage in the United States was provided by

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, and radio coverage by ESPN Radio. The game was the last BCS Championship to air on Fox; starting with the 2010 game, ABC or

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

televised the championship. Tim Tebow's two touchdown passes and

Percy Harvin William Percival Harvin III (born May 28, 1988) is a former American football wide receiver. He played college football at Florida, when the Gators won the BCS National Championship in 2006 and 2008, and was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings ...

's two-yard touchdown run led the Florida Gators to their second BCS National Championship in three seasons. The Gators defeated the Oklahoma Sooners, 24–14, in front of a Dolphin Stadium record crowd of 78,468.

Road to the championship

University of Oklahoma

The Sooners, coached by Bob Stoops, lost one game during their regular season to

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

in the annual

Red River Rivalry The Oklahoma–Texas football rivalry is a college football rivalry game between border rivals Oklahoma and Texas. The two teams first played each other in 1900, and the rivalry has been renewed annually and uninterrupted since 1929 for a tot ...

contest, 45–35 on October 11. During the regular season, quarterback

Sam Bradford Samuel Jacob Bradford (born November 8, 1987) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for nine seasons, most notably with the St. Louis Rams and Minnesota Vikings. He was also a member of the ...

, winner of the 2008 Heisman Trophy, led the Sooners on offense to become the highest-scoring team in NCAA history (702 points) and the first team to score 60 or more points in five consecutive games. The game was Oklahoma's fourth BCS Championship appearance.

Scoring summary

Scoring

;First quarter * No scoring ;Second quarter * FLA —

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20-yard pass from Tim Tebow (Jonathan Phillips kick), 14:02 FLA 7 - OKLA 0 (12 plays, 86 yards in 1:20). * OKLA —

Jermaine Gresham Jermaine Gresham (born June 16, 1988) is a former American football tight end. He was drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals in the first round of the 2010 NFL Draft. He played college football at Oklahoma, where he received All-American honors. Hi ...

6-yard pass from Sam Bradford (Jimmy Stevens kick), 11:49 FLA 7 - OKLA 7 (6 plays, 65 yards in 2:13). ;Third quarter * FLA —

2-yard rush (Jonathan Phillips kick), 4:21 FLA 14 - OKLA 7 (13 plays, 75 yds in 5:22). ;Fourth quarter * OKLA —

11-yard pass from Bradford (Jimmy Stevens kick), 12:13 FLA 14 - OKLA 14 (8 plays, 77 yds in 2:36). * FLA — Jonathan Phillips 27-yard field goal, 10:45 FLA 17 - OKLA 14 (6 plays, 68 yds in 1:28). * FLA — David Nelson 4-yard pass from Tim Tebow (Jonathan Phillips kick), 3:07 FLA 24 - OKLA 14 (11 plays, 76 yds in 6:52).

Statistics

* Passing: Sam Bradford (#14, QB, OKLA) 256 yards * Rushing: Percy Harvin (#1, WR, FLA) 121 yards * Receiving: Jermaine Gresham (#18, TE, OKLA) 62 yards

Game notes

* This was the first meeting between these two teams. * Both starting quarterbacks were Heisman Trophy recipients. * Despite both teams having potent offenses (the Gators had averaged over 45 points per game, while the Sooners averaged 54 points per game), neither team scored in the first quarter. * Quarterbacks Tim Tebow and Sam Bradford combined for four interceptions despite throwing for just eight combined over the course of the regular season. * The Gators thwarted two Sooners possessions that were inside the five-yard line: a stop on fourth and goal on the one-yard line in the second quarter, and an interception of Bradford's pass at Florida's three-yard line with 6 seconds to play in the first half. * Despite coming off an ankle injury and declaring himself at "90%",

had nine carries for 122 yards and a touchdown and five receptions for 49 yards. The injury was reported as a high ankle sprain, but Harvin later stated that it was in fact a hairline fracture. * Jimmy Stevens' 49-yard field goal attempt for the Sooners was blocked in the third quarter. * Florida was ranked #1 and Oklahoma was ranked #5 in the final AP Top 25 and ''

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'' Coaches Poll, released after the game.Voters give Florida No. 1 ranking; perfect Utah is No. 2
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References

{{2008–09 NCAA Division I championships navbox

BCS National Championship Game Florida Gators football bowl games Oklahoma Sooners football bowl games BCS National

Sports competitions in Miami Gardens, Florida American football in Florida