BCS Title Game Recap

I’m sure I’m not breaking any news here, but last night Auburn won the BCS championship game last night with a win over Oregon on a last second field goal. On the surface of it, it seemed like everything you’d want in a championship game: big names on both sides (Cam Newton and LaMichael James), a close game throughout, plenty of skill and talent, and an outcome that was undecided until the end. However, when looking back on the game itself, I can’t help but to feel a bit cheated by it all.

In a match-up pitting two of the nations highest scoring offenses, the game was scoreless through the end of the 1st quarter, and ended up being a pretty low-scoring affair (22-19). Some of it was good defense, but a lot of it, was just plain rust. 2 early interceptions by Darron Thomas and 1 pick from Cam Newton pretty much stiffed any sort of momentum for either team and gave the game a sloppy feeling in the 1st quarter.

From the 2nd quarter on, the teams seemed to find a little bit of rhythm and you saw the big plays open up, but it was far from the shootout most expected.

I’m not going to go too much into summarizing the game because, like I said earlier, you can get that from pretty much any website. I’m just going to give you some of my observations and you can feel free to agree/disagree or otherwise voice your opinions in the comments section.

• Chip Kelly (Oregon’s coach) has some gigantic brass balls

Pictured: Chip Kelly's Scrotum

Even though they lost, I have to admire Chip Kelly’s lay it all on the table philosophy. In the span of about 2 quarters, he called for: a fake extra point, (with the holder and the kicker ran an option for a successful 2 point conversion), a kickoff return reverse (which almost got the return man killed and left them with horrible field position), calling for a long pass out of his own end zone, and a fake punt. Even though they lost, CK left no bullets in the chamber.

• Auburn was the better team (and it showed)

It took a little while to figure out, but right from the outset, it was clear that Auburn was a little bit faster and a lot bigger than Oregon. To their credit, the Ducks knew this too and played to their strengths, a lot of tricks, reverses, option reads, shovel passes, and screens to keep the Auburn D off balance.

• Nick Fairley made himself a lot of money last night

He absolutely dominated the Oregon offensive line and was constantly in the backfield harassing the quarterback and running backs. It was a Suh-ian performance and I came away very impressed. I hope he’s started looking for houses in the Charlotte area because I can’t see the Panthers not picking him #1 overall in the spring (especially since Andrew Luck said that he was coming back to school).

• There was no transcendent performance last night

I, like pretty much everyone else that tuned into the game, expected to see a shootout starring Cam Newton and LaMichael James. What we got instead was something completely different, as neither player really played all that well. LJ only had only 49 yards on 13 carries, and while Cam had a decent stat line (although only 64 rushing yards), it was far from the dominating performance that we’ve come to expect.

• It was all set up for a great ending, but there wasn’t quite the drama there should have been

Cam had a crucial fumble late in the 4th quarter that allowed Oregon to score a touchdown and 2 pt. conversion to tie the game at 19. This set up an almost too good to be true moment: The best quarterback in the country makes a crucial mistake that allows the other team to tie the game, gets the ball back with about 2 minutes to go. I was thinking of an epic drive by Cam Newton to will his team into field goal range for an attempt to win the national championship. Instead, we got the flukish 37 yard run by Michael Dyer that took them down to the Oregon 23. Everyone, including Dyer, thought that he was down, and by mere inches his knee had avoided hitting the turf and he was able to roll over the Oregon player and, after a 3 second pause with no whistle, run deep into Oregon territory before the Duck defenders realized what happened.

Then, after an explosion through the middle by Dyer, getting them down inside the 1 with timeouts and 30 seconds left, Auburn chose to run down the clock for a FG attempt that was shorter than an extra point. No suspense, right through the upright, game out.

What did you think of the game? Did it meet your expectations, could there have been more?