Oklahoma is set to conclude their season on Wednesday night when they square off with Florida in the Goodyear Cotton Bowl.
Largely considered among the very best bowl matchups of the non-College Football Playoff games, this meeting of historic Big 12 and SEC programs has lots of intrigue baked into it. An element that certainly excites fans about the matchup is that it is the first time the two teams have played since they met in the 2009 FedEx BCS National Championship Game.
That matchup was the first, and still only, meeting between the Sooners and the Gators. It was a game loaded with talent all over the field and truly a matchup of two great teams.
Both teams provided Heisman-winning quarterbacks in Sam Bradford and Tim Tebow, and both had head coaches who had already won a national title previously in Bob Stoops and Urban Meyer.
Florida struck first on a Tebow touchdown pass to Louis Murphy to grab a 7-0 lead early in the second quarter, but Bradford found Jermaine Gresham for a touchdown of their own to have things square at 7-7 at the half.
The Gators would take a 14-7 lead into the fourth frame after a touchdown run from Percy Harvin had them retake the lead. Oklahoma would then tie it again on a touchdown from Bradford to Gresham to even things at 14-14, but that would be the last time they would score. After a Florida field goal, Tebow would later ice the game on a jump pass touchdown to David Nelson to put them up ahead 24-14 in what would go on to be the final score.
Both teams have current pieces of their team who were involved in the game in one way or another. Sooners current running backs coach DeMarco Murray was on that team but missed the game due to injury – a fact that many Oklahoma fans hold onto as a reason for the loss. Meanwhile for the Gators, their current head coach Dan Mullen was the offensive coordinator at the time.
Murray and the Sooners will look to get some form of revenge when these two blue-bloods collide for the second time ever on Wednesday night at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
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