The Florida Gators beat the Ohio Buckeyes’ backsides about as thoroughly as a thing like that can happen in public in Monday’s national championship game in a lively BCS Championship Game lively played and lively presented.

Gators receiver Dallas Baker said his guys had a chip on their shoulder. Sure they needed to whoop up on the Buckeyes, proud carriers of the Big Ten, Big Man Conference.

The final, of a game that wouldn’t end, was 41-14, and could have been 100-14. The Gators let up late in the third period on a team that was clearly outclassed. The Gators won completely, in every part of the game — most notably, toughness, muscle, once thought to be properties of the Big Ten.

Not so fast, my friend, as announcer Lee Corso would say. Got to remember while Ohio State went wire-to-wire undefeated, the Buckeyes schedule turned out to be far easier than that of Florida. Florida’s only loss was at Auburn on a blocked kick. Florida beat Louisiana State, maybe the nation’s best at the end.

The Gators trailed in this one, as they did in most, but down 7-0 the Gators went on an effortless, perfect drive behind quarterback Chris Leak, who threw a 14-yard pass for the tying TD at 7-7 and that was that.

Through the early going when the Gators took charge, the game calling was near perfect on offense and defense. The shotgun offense was utilized prior to the game to give Leak, who is no Michael Vick, time to move around a bit. It also gave quarterback Tim Tebow a running start at, or around the line, with his big body. I had forgotten Tebow was left-handed, until the late fourth when he ran an option left, then suddenly, cocked his left arm on the run and flipped a fine TD pass. Tebow is only 18. Imagine. He’ll return as the first QB on the 2007 depth chart. He’s just dandy.

Thom Brennaman, ABC announcer, asked a good question when he wondered if anyone on the broadcasts staff or ‘’out there’’ saw this coming, this blowout. Most of the announcers in all circumstances picked Ohio State. Many who favored Florida were fearful of being terribly wrong. Baker and Gators coach Urban Meyer said the Gators were maligned by the fans and media and the Gators were used it. They showed not one bit of apprehension, those Gators in the game, that they held any fear of the Buckeyes. Florida was better, cocksure, faster and bigger. Buckeye Troy Smith, the Heisman Trophy winner, and a popular kid, praised Florida. He didn’t have a chance. He completed about the same number of passes as he was sacked by these big, quick Gators.

Everybody wanted to take the blame — Smith, and particularly OSU coach Jim Tressel. The team certainly didn’t have the bulk of the great defensive and plodding teams of Woody Hayes and Earle Bruce. He will also be pounded in the demanding Buckeye media for failed fourth-quarter efforts to make first downs.

Why, in this very nearly perfect football game for Florida, even field-goal kicker Chris Hetland was perfect — two of two FGs from 42 ad 40, both badly needed at the time for morale and better still, to boost leads. Only the now-and-then effective kickoffs of Florida can be unworthy of the rest of this fine team.

Smith said it was all his fault. Not so. Partly, but not all. The big and quick Florida defense, up front at linebacker in the secondary, was clearly the best he had faced, he said. Looked like it was. Leak, through this final game, has lauded his defense, and should have.

This a Gator team is to be judged one of the best ever, just right for the national championship winner with a knockout of Ohio State and this brilliant record. Appropriate for being the team of the 100th year of UF, just right as another reward for this bulging and growing Gator Nation.

When Florida was the national champ for Coach Steve Spurrier and quarterback Danny Wuerffel with a solid victory over Florida State in the Sugar Bowl, the wonderful, former Gator banquet circuit rider, Red Mitchum, said, ‘’now I can sing my song again with more meaning, ‘We Are the Boys ... from Old Florida ...’ and he sang it with full meaning.

Then later, big Gator trial lawyer, Manny Garcia, who drove to all games in a Lincoln Convertible, with a federal judge, said: ‘’And I can take the newspapers’ sports sections and go out to Myrtle Hill Cemetery and read the glowing accounts of the great win to our Gators of the past there, now — like Mayor Julian Lane, Sam Davis, Jim Kynes, you know them all.’’

Their days in Orange and Blue were valiant and gallant, but, well, not quite up to the championship play of these teams of 1996 and 2006 that won the big cup, though surely as tough.