Florida showcased, speed, talent in thrashing OSU

	Ohio State was the clear favorite, but when it was over Florida celebrated its second national championship since 1996. AP
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GLENDALE, Ariz. -- When the doors swung open to Florida's locker room about 45 minutes after Monday night's BCS National Championship Game, several Gators were busy filming their own mini-cam documentaries of the scene. Safety Tony Joiner delivered a monologue in front of one of them.

"They said it couldn't be done, that David couldn't beat Goliath," shouted Joiner. "The score has been settled. Forty-one to 14, University of Florida. Who didn't deserve to be here?"

David didn't just beat Goliath on Monday -- he humiliated him. He so thoroughly outclassed the only team to be ranked No. 1 during the 2006 regular season that it leaves us wondering whether the past four months were really just one big lie.

There are no shortage of figures deserving of recognition on the occasion of this, the Florida Gators' second national championship. First, however, let us take a moment to bestow praise on college football's new reigning genius: Jim Walden.

Walden, you may recall, is the former Washington State and Iowa State coach who, back when the rest of the country was arguing over whether Florida or Michigan should have finished the regular season No. 2, was the only one out of 175 BCS pollsters with the audacity to rank the Gators No. 1. (Walden voted in the Harris Poll.)

Following a regular season that saw three straight months of endless Buckeyes adulation, Walden was the one so-called expert to not only stand up and voice his dissent but to shout it to the hilltops. "Ohio State hasn't proved anything," he said at the time. Following a Michigan-Ohio State game so colossal it merited its own countdown clock, Walden was the one contrarian to voice his opinion that, "The Big Ten is as weak as it's been in 25 years."

And he pointed to the Gators' 12-1 record against a grueling SEC schedule and proclaimed -- to much mockery -- "Florida deserves to be No. 1."

If only we'd listened to you, Jim Walden.

Or if only Florida cornerback Ryan Smith had informed us beforehand what he disclosed on the confetti-strewn field moments after Monday night's beatdown. "I don't think Ohio State is as good a team as people thought," said Smith. "Their last eight games didn't compare to the last eight games we played, and coach [Urban Meyer] pointed that out to us."