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APMIAMI - After the handshake, when Bob Stoops congratulated and Urban Meyer consoled, Thursday night's head coaches headed in opposite directions toward opposite fates.
Meyer found himself in a hug-fest, his Gators celebrating a 24-14 victory over Oklahoma and another national championship. Stoops trudged toward the tunnel en route to another uncomfortable January night, another offseason of questions about whether his team can win a national title ever again.
Sound familiar? Here's a quick refresher on what's happened to these two men since the start of 2001, when Stoops' Sooners won a national title by drubbing Florida State here, in the same Dolphin Stadium where UF beat OU on Thursday. Stoops' stock has sunk, with five losses in six BCS bowls, earning him the weird game-coaching dichotomy of looking like Bud Wilkinson for 364 days each year and John Blake for one.
Meyer, meanwhile, has enjoyed a rock-star rise to the pinnacle of his profession. He won big at Bowling Green, brought football fever to Salt Lake City with an undefeated 2004, and now owns two national championships in four years in orange and blue.
"He has to be," tight end Tate Casey said, "the best there is at what he does."
The coaching contrast was a theme here all week, with postseason performance and the coaches' records reflected in the moods of their players. Florida seemed relaxed, shying away from trash talk and feeling confident in their staff's past success. The Sooners were the opposite, as if they faced not only the Gators here but also the Ghosts of BCS Past: West Virginia, 48-28; Boise State, 43-42 in overtime; USC, 55-19; LSU, 21-14.
Aside from the occasional upset, these are the lone bruises on Stoops' resume. He has coached Oklahoma for a decade now and lost 24 games. But five have come in BCS bowls, when everyone is watching, and when most make judgments on a program and its leader.
"Everyone will have their opinions on that," Stoops said. "That's fine. In the end, I'll be glad to try it again next year. If that's the biggest burden I'll have to bear in my life, I'll be a pretty lucky guy."
As he reviews this latest stumble, Stoops will reflect on three blown scoring chances. In the third quarter, he elected on 4th-and-5 to try a 49-yard field goal, seven yards longer than kicker Jimmy Stevens' career long. Florida's Carlos Dunlap blocked the kick, the school-record ninth block for a special teams unit coached by Meyer.
Then there are the two goal-line meltdowns that cost OU a double-digit halftime lead.
The latter, a Sam Bradford interception on a tipped ball, is excusable, even for a team that had scored 76 times on 80 trips inside the opponents' 20-yard-line.
The former will be a head-scratcher in Norman for years: First-and-goal midway through in the second quarter, game tied 7-7, and the Sooners elected four straight runs from Chris Brown. They faced a 3rd-and-goal at the Florida 1-yard-line and the time seemed perfect for Bradford to find one of his receivers, all of whom owned size advantages on UF's defensive backs, for what would have been his 50th TD pass of the year.
But offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson feared the receivers would be doubled, so he called an inside run for Brown. Reserve defensive tackle Torrey Davis, who nearly got booted from the Gators for academic and work-ethic issues in the offseason, stuffed Brown. And on fourth down, Davis shoved his blocker into the backfield, knocking Brown off-balance and forcing the season's biggest turnover on downs.
"The coaches could have given up on me," Davis said. "They believed in me, and I'm glad I got to contribute."
To reset: On the season's key pair of plays, OU's coaches took the ball out the Heisman Trophy winner's hand and gave it to a second-string running back. Meanwhile, a reclamation project of the Florida coaches stopped the plays cold and celebrated as if he'd hit Powerball.
That's why the handshake went the way it did, and the men headed off in different directions
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Zambia has won the African Cup of Nations, beating pre-tournament favorite Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in a dramatic final at Stade de l'Amitie.
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