Sophomore quarterback Tim Tebow capped his 2007 Heisman Trophy season with a trip to Orlando, but Michigan prevailed.
Citrus Bowl History Lesson 5 - Gators vs Michigan (2007)
Thursday, December 31, 2015 | Football, Chris Harry
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By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Unlike the season before, the Florida Gators would not play for the national championship, but a certain quarterback had a pretty big night at the Downtown Athletic Club on Dec. 8, 2007.
Tim Tebow became the 73rd Heisman Trophy winner, joining Steve Spurrier and Danny Wuerrfel as the third Gators in program history to honored as the nation's best college football player.
Florida opened the season with four straight wins, then lost three of four in midseason, falling at home to Auburn, at LSU and in the annual rivalry game against Georgia. The Gators rebounded with four straight victories, including a 45-12 rout of Florida State in a game where Tebow fractured his non-throwing hand but stayed in the game to pass for three scores and run for two more.
UF finished the regular season 9-3. Along the way, Tebow shattered the Southeastern Conference record for touchdowns (55) amassed by a quarterback, passing for 35 and rushing for another 20, becoming the only player in FBS history to throw and rush for at least 20 TDs in the same season.
With a third-place finish in the SEC East, the Gators gladly accepted their first Capital One Bowl (the Citrus' name then) bid in eight years. Coach Urban Meyer liked how his team finished the season, comparing the close of '07 to the one in '05 (his first at UF) when the Gators lost a disappointing game at South Carolina, but beat Florida State and took momentum into the postseason -- en route to one of the greatest recruiting hauls in school history -- by defeating Iowa in the Outback Bowl.
Meyer hoped for a repeat-like performance against Michigan, the runner-up in the Big Ten.
To the time machine we go.
FOR HISTORICAL CONTEXT (Elsewhere in the news on Jan. 1, 2008)
Moore* Year-end numbers from Kabul, Afghanistan, reported that U.S. military deaths, suicide bombings and opium production hit record highs in 2007. Taliban militants killed more than 925 afghan police and large swaths of the country remained outside government control.
* In North Florida, forecasters predicted temperatures to plummet into the mid-20s overnight and freezing temperatures for four to eight hours along the Interstate 75 corridor.
* Sara Jane Moore, who took a shot at President Ford in a bizarre 1975 assassination attempt, was paroled from prison near San Francisco. Moore, 77, had served 32 years of a life sentence when she was released from the federal prison in Dublin, Calif. In recent interviews, Moore had said she regretted her actions, saying she was blinded by her radical political views.
* At the movies: "Juno" starring Ellen Page; "I Am Legend" starring Will Smith; "Alien Vs. Predator - Requiem" starring absolutely no one of note. Beyonce* On television: "Dancing With the Stars" on ABC Monday night at 8, then "Two And a Half Men" (still with Charlie Sheen) at 9 on CBS, followed by and "CSI: Miami" at 10.
* On the radio: The Billboard Top 100 songs of 2007 counted down like so: 3) -- "The Sweet Escape" by Gwen Stefani (featuring Akon); 2) -- "Umbrella" by Rihanna (featuring Jay-Z); 1) -- "Irreplaceable" by Beyonce.
THE SETUP
CarrMichigan started the season by losing at home to Appalachian State. From there, the pressure on Coach Lloyd Carr would only mount -- and went next level with a 14-3 home loss to rival Ohio State in a game that decided the Big Ten champion. The defeat gave Carr a fourth straight loss in the series, a 6-7 record against the Buckeyes and a 1-6 mark against OSU coach Jim Tressel.
Two days after the Ohio State game, the 62-year-old Carr announced he would retire at the end of the postseason; after the Wolverines (8-4) faced Tebow and No. 9 and reigning national champion Florida (9-3) in the Citrus Bowl, where Meyer would seek his fifth straight bowl victory.
On Dec. 12, UM announced it had lured Rich Rodriguez, fresh off a 10-2 and Fiesta Bowl-bound season at West Virginia, to be its next coach.
There would be plenty of time to focus on Rodriguez, who was red-hot at the time. The run-up to the bowl game, though, became all about Carr. UM's 29 seniors vowed to make his final game a memorable one.
THE GAME
UM tailback Mike Hart runs past UF linebacker Dustin Doe.Drenched from an ice-water bath, Michigan's embattled and beloved head coach was carried off the field by his dancing and celebrating players after the Wolverines upset the Gators 41-35 at the expense of their Heisman winning quarterback.
With Rodriguez watching from a private stadium box, Carr went out a winner.
UM quarterback Chad Henne passed for 373 yards and three touchdowns, including the go-ahead score to Adrian Arrington (9 receptions, 153 yards, 2 TDs) with 4:12 remaining. Tailback Mike Hart rushed 32 times for 129 yards and a TD.
UF had two more chances to tie or take the lead, but the Gators turned the ball over on downs at their own 21 with 2:21 left. That led to Michigan field goal from K.C. Lopata with 1:37 to play, but kept the Wolverines' margin at a single possession.
Florida got the ball back, but Tebow's final four passes were all incompletions. He finished 14 of 33 for 154 yards and three touchdowns, plus another 67 yards rushing and a score. Do-it-all speedster Percy Harvin ran 13 times for 165 yards and a touchdown, also rushing for 57 yards and a 10-yard run with with 5:49 remaining that gave the Gators a 35-31 lead.
But Henne needed just four plays to march the Wolverines 66 yards and find Arrington for the 18-yard touchdown that gave UM the lead for good.
THE QUOTES
Carr and his Wolverines.* "You want to end the season on a good note, so it definitely takes some of the positive out of what we accomplished." -- Tebow
* "It's extremely meaningful on a personal level, but the reason it's meaningful is because I can be in that locker room with the guys that did it. Our coaches put together a great game plan, our players executed. We were big so-called underdogs, so to come up with that kind of effort and to find a way to win means that we have some memories that we're all going to be able to celebrate for years to come." -- Carr
* "Any time we get a victory, we're always happy. But we knew it was his last game, the seniors' last game, and when we leave on top like that, it's awesome. Obviously it was emotional after the game. It's sad, but happy. It was my last game in a Wolverines jersey and his last game coaching. We all had mixed emotions." -- Hart
* "The deflater is when you go ahead and score on the fake punt and that [TD] drive and then -- boom, boom, boom -- right down the field and they score. You have to answer score for score. I really thought we'd have a chance to come back and win that thing, but we didn't get it going." -- Meyer
THE FALLOUT
Florida finished the season 9-4 and ranked 13th in the final Associated Press poll, dropping to 2-4 in bowl games against the Big Ten over the previous decade. Michigan, with its first bowl since since 2003 (when the Wolverines defeated the Gators in the Outback Bowl), also capped at 9-4 and with the No. 18 ranking.
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Tim Tebow became the 73rd Heisman Trophy winner, joining Steve Spurrier and Danny Wuerrfel as the third Gators in program history to honored as the nation's best college football player. 
