It’s only
fitting that the most dramatic of major Bowl games in 2014 was saved for last
game of all.
I honestly
thought we’d seen all the craziness imaginable through a truly spectacular week
featuring the Rose, Fiesta, Sugar and Orange Bowls, but it turns out that those
games – chock-full of big plays, points by the handful, wild momentum swings
and, in some cases, program-defining moments – were just the entrée.
The main
course was the BCS National Championship, in which one of the great college
football programs of all time, dormant and in the wilderness for so many years,
returned to the pinnacle of the sport, breaking, in the process, the
stranglehold that the South Eastern Conference has had on college football’s
top step. In 2014, after a dominant season, the Florida State Seminoles are
National Champions, prevailing 34-31 victors in one of the more memorable Bowl Championship
Series-era National Championship deciders.
It’s ironic
that what you might call the high-water mark of the Bowl Championship Series
era came in it’s last game. The 2014 national title decider, quite fittingly,
was a BCS game that will be remembered head and shoulders above most others,
perhaps bettered by only bettered by the epic 2006 National Championship Game,
also at the Rose Bowl, that knock-down-drag-out slugfest between Vince Young’s
Texas Longhorns and Matt Leinart’s USC Trojans.
As football
fans, we could not have asked for a more gripping finale. It must be said that
I’m a Trojan fan, bleeding cardinal and gold, so I will remember this game with
more fondness than the 2006 decider. Tonight, Florida State did their best 2006
Texas impersonation, with their late-game heroics.
When the
Seminoles took the Rose Bowl field on a perfect January night in Pasadena, it
wasn’t just sixty minutes of all-in football that separated them from getting
their hands on the crystal Coach’s Trophy as the last National Champions of the
controversial BCS era, it was a team of destiny on the far sideline: the Auburn
Tigers.
Have we
ever seen a team quite like the 2013-14 Tigers? I say no, at least not in
recent memory. The Tigers rebounded from a disastrous 3-win season a year ago,
and brought in a new head coach in Gus Malzahn, who, as Auburn’s offensive
coordinator, played such an enormous role in the last Auburn National
Championship, in 2010 with that year’s Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton running
the offense.
This
incarnation of Auburn football seemed to have a Guardian Angel on their
shoulders. There was the Hail Mary deep ball, thrown by Auburn QB Nick
Marshall, that was tipped by a Bulldog defender fell neatly Tiger receiver,
Ricardo Lewis’s hands for the winning touchdown against Georgia and the
100-yard return of a missed Alabama field goal for a memorable win as time ran
out on a perhaps the greatest of all Iron Bowl contests.
No, the
Tigers didn’t have the same depth of athletes on their sideline, but they had a
seemingly irresistible roll on, and made a name for themselves for being able
to conjure up ridiculous plays whenever they needed something to shift momentum.
As far as improbable runs go…well, I’ve
never seen one quite like it. Charting their gripping wins week in week out was
one of the joys of the season for me. Rarely did anyone play more entertaining
football than Auburn did. It was great to watch.
Despite a
loss that will sting for some time to come, the Tigers deserve to be lauded for
how far they’ve risen. 3-9 last year, including a winless 0-8 record in SEC
play saw head coach Gene Chizik fired less than two years after delivering a
National Championship.
A few days
ago, I put my thoughts out there, and tipped Florida State, but there was a
nagging suspicion lingering on the edge of my mind. I hadn’t exactly covered
myself in glory, not getting any BCS Bowl right, and I was concerned about my
pick for this one, too.
Why?
Simple. If
there was a team likely to snatch a win of this ilk, a team likely to snatch
the Coach’s Trophy out of the hands of the highly-favoured Seminoles, it’s
Auburn. With the way they’ve won games this season, I wasn’t prepared to
dismiss them as the double digit underdogs they were heading in. I just
couldn’t ignore what they’ve done all year long, resurgent under the brilliant
offense mind of Malzahn. Football has a strange way of tossing up unexpected
results. Look at the run of underdog victories in the Rose, Fiesta, Sugar and
Orange Bowls as proof of that.
Too many
big games turn out to be busts, not nearly worthy of the pre-game hype that’s
attached to them. Alabama and LSU in 2011 is the perfect example. Thankfully,
the 2014 BCS National Championship Game didn’t fall into that category. No, not
even close. This was football from the top shelf. We saw a little of
everything. By the end, when Florida State stormed onto the Rose Bowl field to
celebrate as National Champions, there wasn’t much more that I could say other
than, “Wow!”
In the Iron
Bowl on Thanksgiving Weekend, it was Auburn coming from behind, storming
through, over and around the fancied and favoured Alabama Crimson Tide. At the
Rose Bowl on Monday night, it was the Tigers who had the lead and were overrun
spectacularly by a Florida State team who had trailed, in thirteen games
previous to this National Championship tilt, for a combined time of less than
forty minutes.
The old
adage is that football is a game of two halves. Rarely has that saying been
proven truer than it was in this contest. Auburn came out of the box and jumped
all over the Seminoles. Where the Tigers looked prepared and ready to play,
Florida State seemed like they were fast asleep, and quickly found themselves
in a 21-3 hole. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
It’s not an
exaggeration to say that the Seminoles were being dominated in every facet of
the game. It was a committed and impressive first half from the Tigers. Birthday
boy, Famous Jameis Winston, the Heisman Trophy-winning Florida State
quarterback, looked shaky and uncertain in the face of the pressure brought by
the Tiger defense. He was – and you’ll pardon the pun – mauled by the Tigers at
times, and telegraphed some throws badly.
Slowly at
first, old Uncle Mo – momentum – started to swing in the Seminoles’ favour. Down
for the first time at half time, the Seminoles clawed their way back in. I saw
signs of a resurgence late in the third quarter as FSU suddenly discovered the
offense that had seen them beat up on opponents en route to the BCS National
Championship. Jameis Winston morphed from a guy who looked overawed on the big
stage to the quarterback we’d seen shred defenses all year long.
With Winston’s
rise, so came Florida State.
Few could
have predicted the wold twists and turns that fourth quarter provided: thirty-one
points in all and a storybook end. Hollywood, just a short drive down the
freeway from the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, could scarcely have come up with
anything more dramatic. A Marshall interception gave the Florida State the
football, and the ensuing touchdown brought the ‘Noles to within one until an
Auburn field goal gave the Tigers a 24-20 lead.
Four scores
in the final five minutes. I was calling my friends, telling them to switch on
ESPN. It was like a heavyweight fight, back and forth, attack and
counterattack. Florida State’s Levonte Whitfield ensured his place in Seminole
football lore, returning the ensuing kickoff back one hundred yards, and
Florida State regained the lead, 27-24.
The
gauntlet was thrown down and Auburn responded, with RB Tre Mason (who had a
scintillating night, carrying the football thirty-four times for 195 yards and
a touchdown) running 36 yards for a touchdown. If the Tigers had prevailed, I
believe Mason would’ve been named Offensive MVP. The ‘Noles tacklers could
scarcely stop him. Like Clemson’s Sammy Watkins in the Orange Bowl, when Auburn
needed a big play, Mason was there to deliver.
Right down
to the end, the result was up in the air. Until Famous Jameis took over,
orchestrating a masterful offensive show, a drive of timely perfection. He was 6-7
for 77 yards and a touchdown on the game-winning drive, which was capped by a
two-yard catch from dependable WR Kelvin Benjamin with just thirteen seconds
remaining after a Pass Interference call on Chris Davis, the hero of the
Alabama win. The touchdown gave FSU a 24-10 scoring edge in the second half.
Still, 0:13
to play. We held our breath, remembering games past – Alabama and Georgia fans
possibly suffering momentary heart burn – wondering if lighting could strike
thrice…but there no last miracle for Auburn, and so Florida State had it’s
place in history as the last BCS National Champions.
Next year,
college football’s brand new dawn: a national playoff system. I can’t wait to
see what that brings. Perhaps the era closed tonight was best summed up by
ESPN’s veteran play-by-play man Brent Musburger – who might have called his
last big-time game of college football, if the swirling rumours are to be
believed – who called the 2014 BCS National Championship a “perfect end to an
imperfect system.”
An
imperfect system, certainly, but one that will be more fondly remembered than
it might otherwise have been, thanks to what transpired at the Rose Bowl in
front of 94,208 fans on Monday night as Jimbo Fisher’s men brought one of
America’s traditional powerhouses back to glory.
I already
can’t wait for spring football and the beginning of the season in Auburn. I
suspect they’ll be partying hard down in Tallahassee, until at least those
early spring practices!
The SEC's National Championship-winning domination is finally over after seven years. Congratulations, Florida State!
Deserved National Champions. What a season!
