This is it.  One final game to put an end to the season and crown our mythical champion.  A ninth BCS era champion will be crowned, setting off a flurry of confetti into the air and joyful revelers into the streets of Glendale.  It is a celebration above all else.  For fans of 117 of D-IA's 119 teams, tonight should hold some special meaning because partisanship goes only so far: we are college football fans, after all.

Despite pronouncements to the contrary, college football is quite healthy.  The BCS vs. playoff arguments are simply that, an argument.  We worship at the altar of a flawed game and love every moment of it.

The frustration and angry chasm of early December has given way to a fairly unanimous realization that we got it right.  Michigan flubbed in the second half against USC.  And hey, what fun would a rematch have been, anyway?  Instead we get to see some real tensions play out.

It's the boys from Ohio State, among the most traditional of college football's traditional powers.  Big, cornfed Midwestern kids with their sweatervested coach Jim Tressel.  He's a BCS game maven of sorts, going 3-0 so far including a shocking upset of Miami for Ohio State's first national championship since 1968.  Now they're going for their second in four years.

It's the intimidation factor introduced by Urban Meyer's Florida Gators.  They're fast, they play defense and like to play some backyard ball offense to keep folks guessing.

We have the power and prestige hungry SEC loyalists who ruthlessly hate on each other, banding together for one night.  They're all hoping and praying the Gators get the win and restore order, at least in their minds.

We have proud Midwestern folk tired of hearing about how dem' fast Southern boys are going to smoke one of college football's true powers and their Heisman trophy winning quarterback.  No huh, they say.

This game won't do anything to give conclusive evidence either way about whose worldview is superior... but it's fodder just the same.

As for the teams, this is a fantastic matchup.  I'm a big fan of both coaches.  Troy Smith has been a great ambassador for college football this year.  Reggie Freakin' Nelson should have a whale of a game.  The youth movement will be served thanks to Beanie Wells, Tim Tebow and Percy Harvin.  The storylines are all here, all that's left is for the game to be played.

I guess I should make some kind of prediction so here goes: Ohio State wins.  The vogue thing of late is to pick the Gators, and it makes a lot of sense.  Defense wins championships or so they say, and the Gators have plenty of it.  But they've been inconsistent at best in running the ball.  I don't think the Buckeye run game is all that superior, but they have a trump card in Troy Smith.  He's simply been indomitable in every dire circumstance the last two seasons.  Their defense can be had, as Michigan showed, but you have to outscore Troy Smith if you are so lucky.

Sometimes the prevailing winds of history do some talking, and they have this bowl season.  For all their excitement in beating USC, UCLA habitually self destructs.  For all the misery of this year, Florida State is a powerful program 25 years running.  The Seminoles had a mental edge on UCLA and used it to win that game.

In spite of a truly fantastic season, Michigan's a stodgy team directed by the scion of a guy who could not consistently win the big game.  It's a team coming of a string of never-ending 3-5 loss seasons and several marquee bowl losses.  Their history was saying bad things and USC went out and took advantage of that.  Same thing, USC had that edge in performance at the highest levels.

Which leaves me at this game.

Ohio State's fingerprints are all over the history of college football.  Their players know it coming in, and expect to play in and win these types of ballgames when they enroll.  Coach Tressel has followed through by getting them to big bowl games and winning the important ones.  They've done this before and they should do it again.

Florida, like Miami and Florida State, has become a dominant force in the post 70's makeup of college football.  They have a title of their own to speak of, and are no small player on this national scene either.  But they can be had.  They won the rematch with Florida State in 1996, but were also crushed by Nebraska not long before that.

Players past are not regaining eligibility and participating in tonight's game, but sometimes history talks and occasionally I'll listen.  If this were 2002 I'd speak differently (and be wrong!), but the Buckeyes got their title back, they have that mojo coursing through the program and I think it matters tonight.

By no means would I be shocked if the Gators won the game, but history, a just good enough defense and Troy Smith should be enough for Ohio State to claim victory here.