Gators beat Bearcats in Sugar Bowl, Tebow closes out career with a bang,

January 2nd, 2010 by Vince Mullins

Happy New Year! May you make it happy, healthy and prosperous.

Florida Gator Tim Tebow throws a first-quarter Sugar Bowl touchdown to TE Aaron Hernandez. (Chris Zuppa, St. Pete Times)

Ironic that as a new decade rolls in we witness the possible player of the previous decade Tim Tebow create quite the exclamation point for his career.

In the Florida Gators Sugar Bowl 51-24 throttling of the Cincinnati Bearcats on January 1, Tebow threw for a career high of 482 yards and three TDs, then ran for another TD and enough yards to eclipse 500 yards of total offense. Games like that truly happen only once in a blue moon, and I wonder if this week’s version may have had a little orange aurora.

From Jeremy Fowler of the Orlando Sentinel, Tebow called prolific ending to a prolific career “better than a dream.”

“I didn’t see this coming as far as that many yards and everything,” Tebow said. “I knew we had a good game plan. I knew we were going to try to spread it out a little bit. We felt like that would be successful. And just coming into the game, we just were hitting and clicking so we kept going with it and ended up obviously throwing for a lot of yards.”

Many (including us shortly) will debate the NFL potential of the Tebow Child, and many have grown weary of the infinite media coverage that the Heisman Pundit calls Tebow Fatigue – fantasy players like to deal in facts, so let us reflect for a moment on the amazing career which can be argued was the finest college football player ever.

NCAAsports.com | Tim Tebow, Florida

55 Games | Rushing – 2946 yds, 57 TD |Passing – 9285 yds, 88 TD
Total Offense – 12231 yards, tops in SEC History
2007 – led nation with 55 TD (23 run, 32 pass) (first 20-20 season in NCAAF history)
Two National Championships, One Heisman Trophy

Sure, Dan Lefeveour outpaces Tebow in total TDs and total yards, but that last line makes the difference between a Fantasy Player of the Decade and the best college football player of all time.

A final note on the statistical brilliance of Tebow – his high school numbers at St. Augustine Nease. Tebow finished his high school career with 9,810 passing yards, 3,186 rushing yards, 95 passing touchdowns and 62 rushing touchdowns. So sixteen miles of total offense before he is legally able to rent a car.

And then there is the ministry work…we should all be so productive in our lives.

Kudos to Number 15 for an amazing journey, and best wishes for his new journey in the NFL or wherever it takes him.

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