By MIKE LOPRESTI
Gannett News Service

PHOENIX - Clearly, the fates of college football wanted Ohio State all along. It was Miami's misfortune to be in the way.

On the day after one of the most extraordinary games in history, the coach of a national champion that needed many blessings was asked if his players realized what they had just done.

"I don't know if they will fully get it until more time passes," Jim Tressel said Saturday morning. "I hope what they get from it is what it takes to be champion."

Never mind BCS computer printouts or playoff debates. What the season came down to was one unforgettable football game.

A playoff? Did Friday leave anything out?

An underdog touched by the football gods. A finish for the ages. A beaten champion, falling with honor, and horrendous luck.

No reason to play another game next week.

The gold standard for great college football title moments is the 1984 Orange Bowl, when Miami upset Nebraska, 31-30.

This one belongs in the same room. It may even be better, for the overtime process demanded one do-or-die moment after another.

"That game might be an impetus for the NFL to rethink what they're doing," Tressel said of the college overtime system of letting each team get the ball at the 25-yard-line. "because you can't get much more exciting."

Or maybe not. It is hard to be comfortable with sudden death overtime, when one team may never see the football. But the college system is a little too quirky for many tastes. Some sort of hybrid is needed.

Still, for the sake of drama in general, and Friday in particular, it was the perfect stage.

We'll need a cliche to put the Fiesta Bowl in the book of classics.

Dynasty losing to destiny?

No other word for Ohio State, certainly. Its' autumn was one long series of jailbreaks. You do not need to move around much luck to turn the 14-0 Buckeyes into 11-3, or 10-4.

They trailed seven games after halftime. In two of them, they were down to fourth-and-lose.

It was like watching a mongoose dance around a rattlesnake.

The opposition did not seem to matter. The Buckeyes needed late heroics to beat Cincinnati, the same way they needed them to beat Michigan. They required overtime against a losing team from Illinois, just as they did against Miami.

"We didn't panic," safety Donnie Nickey said at the end of the long day. "We didn't panic, we didn't surrender all season."

Ohio State would not lose. Not only that, Ohio State would not be beaten. A team could ask for no better legacy.

Poor Miami. This is what happens when you're locked in the same game with someone ordained.

There will be mutterings the Hurricanes were shafted with the late and iffy pass interference flag that saved the Buckeyes on fourth down in the first overtime.

But it should not be forgotten they had five turnovers. Do that, and you are opening the door for disaster, as if it were the pizza delivery man.

This game dignified a bowl season that sometimes had a bumpy ride.

The Rose Bowl had its worst crowd since 1944. The Sunshine State took a collar - Miami, Florida State and Florida all lost.

Tennessee was dreadful, Notre Dame awful. Nebraska's crash dive went deeper. It is maddening enough for the Cornhuskers that they must settle for the Independence Bowl, but now they can't even win it.

USC crushed Iowa at the Rose Bowl Annex, otherwise known as the Orange Bowl. But before that, the Trojans had O.J. Simpson into practice and posed for pictures, in a stupefying lapse of judgment.

But all this was fine print, for a Fiesta Bowl that will forever be special.

This night touched every floor of emotion. From Craig Krenzel's death-defying fourth down conversions to Miami's premature celebration. From two-way Buckeye Chris Gamble being on the field for 120 plays, to Hurricane Willis McGahee leaving early with a tragically wrecked knee.

All that, plus two overtimes, and the signature characteristic of a timeless game - to be a treasure in one place, and haunt another.