Chris Leak, The Baited Gator

GLENDALE, Ariz.

If Florida somehow upsets Ohio State, the fickle people of Gainesville will have to live with the fact they didn't want Chris Leak to quarterback their team this season. The most impulsive among them will have to acknowledge they got butterflies over the dreamy new kid in homeroom at the expense of the senior who paid for the prom.

Chris Leak is Exhibit A in what's wrong with the fan culture in college football, how warped and misguided behavior now fall under the true-to-your-school umbrella.

The kid who will take the first snap for the Gators against the Buckeyes tonight was booed at home earlier this season. Unmercifully booed. The derision wasn't all directed at Leak, who had thrown an interception against Kentucky as Florida was about to score.

Part of it was for Urban Meyer, the coach who replaced freshman Tim Tebow with Leak after Tebow had turned upfield in Florida's spread-option offense, making Gators fans go absolutely ga-ga over their fuel-injected offense.

Tebow in Gainesville today is Damon Bailey in Bloomington, Ind., circa mid-1980s -- the hope of a new era. Running like a fawn out of the womb, his legs and arms all agape and only green in front in him, Tebow is the golden child. He is the train in the distance, the majestic locomotive capable of transporting Florida's alumni and students to a utopian place in the sport.

On the surface, that's fine. There is nothing inherently wrong with believing strongly in the gifts a promising kid can bring.

Except the train in the station is the one who ultimately brought Florida to the cusp of a national championship.

You would think a senior who holds school records for passing yardage, completions and attempts might be more appreciated. You would think a kid who has thrown for more than 11,000 yards in four seasons, a 6-foot pocker passer who withstood a regime and system change -- from Ron Zook's drop-back attack to Meyer's new-fangled spread option -- and galloped nine yards for a touchdown against Arkansas in the Southeastern Conference title game to get Florida here, might be afforded real respect, no?

Nope. Uh-uh. Not in this frothing environment. Leak is the new-millennium BMOC, in which you do everything your coaches ask -- even subjugate your stats and ego for the good of the freshman whom everyone wants to take your job today -- and still be booed at home your senior year.

People were so in love with Tebow in Gainesville, Gators fans were ready to give up on Leak before the season even began. Several weeks into Florida's 2006 campaign, Leak was publicly skewered. He took a nasty beating in that unhealthy Internet support group, Message Boards Anonymous. Miserable Suburban Guy radio did not spare him, either.