Jan. 10, 2007
 
COLUMN: Gators Good Enough to Go Pro
 
By Dave Krieger
Scripps Howard News Service
 
Glendale, AZ (SHNS) -- The University of Florida was admitted to three professional leagues late Monday.
 
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell declared that by trouncing undefeated Ohio State in the BCS championship game, the Gators proved themselves superior to the Oakland Raiders, who will be added to the Pac-10, which will be renamed the Pac-10 1/2.
 
NBA commissioner David Stern announced that after considerable thought _ in fact, nine months of it, since the Final Four _ the Gators had proved themselves superior to the New York Knicks and would replace them as prime tenants at Madison Square Garden. Stern explained his league could not have two champions located in Florida _ Miami won the NBA title in June _ and besides, Billy Donovan would be more at home in New York than Isiah Thomas.
 
In a late development, baseball commissioner Bud Selig was sleeping soundly. But his deputy, Bob DuPuy, confirmed that the Gators, who played in the College World Series two years ago, would replace Tampa Bay in the American League, for obvious reasons.
 
In fact, DuPuy said, Tampa Bay would be renamed the University of Tampa Bay because all that losing must have produced some higher learning.
 
In a related story, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said he would be happy to add the Gators to his league as soon as they put together a hockey program.
 
"We can never have too many teams in Florida," Bettman said.
 
OK, this stuff hasn't happened yet, but it's only a matter of time. The confluence of professional and collegiate sports has been coming for a while.
 
Indeed, when the University of Southern California was rolling to the national football championship two years ago, it was widely believed that the Trojans were better than both the Raiders and the 49ers, making them the second-best team in California, behind the Chargers.
 
But Florida's sweep of the national collegiate basketball and football titles eight months apart was unprecedented. If the Gators still aren't as big as the Yankees, they certainly are bigger than the Devil Rays. Even the devil wants nothing to do with them, which is why they may have to change their name.
 
Clearly, the University of Florida cares more about athletics, and is better at them, than any number of professional organizations.
 
Reportedly, they also have classes in Gainesville, but the players turning pro en masse said they wouldn't miss them.
 
Unfortunately, one small wrinkle mars Florida's national domination of athletics, and it is this:
 
With the college football season over, one undefeated team remains. And it isn't the champion. It didn't even play for the championship.
 
If the Bowl Championship Series really has 11 participating conferences now, as it claims to, the Broncos should be champs. The Boise State Broncos.
 
In fact, after beating Big 12 champ Oklahoma right here on the same field a week ago, Boise State would have a claim to a spot in a "plus-one" game if there were such a thing, which there isn't ... yet.
 
BCS coordinator and SEC commissioner Mike Slive said Monday he was "very, very open-minded about a plus-one" system, although it probably won't happen until the current television deal expires in 2010.
 
A plus-one game would be contested between the two top teams after all the existing bowl games were played. Of course, Monday's championship game wouldn't exist in that format.
 
"Let's go play 'em next week," Florida coach Urban Meyer said. Before anyone could take him up on it, he took it back.
 
I could go into all the possible plus-one formats, but my head is already starting to hurt. Suffice it to say that for all the tweaking the BCS has done, you still can dominate a midmajor conference, go undefeated all year, beat a major conference champion in your bowl game and still have no shot at the national championship, even though you allegedly are part of a BCS conference.
 
I am glad to say that my Rocky Mountain News colleague B.G. Brooks, who has a vote in The Associated Press poll, put Boise State ahead of Ohio State on his final ballot. If the Broncos can't qualify for a plus-one game in the BCS, maybe they can play Mike Shanahan's Broncos instead.
 
Brooks, by the way, voted the Buckeyes third. I would have dropped them further than that. Their collapse against the Gators qualified as about three losses in my book.
 
When Jim Tressel went for it on fourth-and-1 at his own 29 in the second quarter, he should have torn off the sweater vest right there, unbuttoned his shirt down to the navel and donned a medallion of some kind.
 
And when his team couldn't stop Florida's freshman Tim Tebow _ when it knew he would run the quarterback draw pretty much every time he came on the field, it proved itself unrelated to higher education.
 
As for the Gators, I'm picking them to win the American League East. Obviously, they're on a roll.
 
(Contact Dave Krieger of the Rocky Mountain News at www.rockymountainnews.com.)