Started from the bottom now we're here. Started from the bottom
now the whole team here.
-- Drake, 'Started
From The Bottom'
We're
all getting ahead of ourselves, every last one of
us.
Auburn athletic director Jay Jacobs, talking
heads and anyone with a Twitter account is already debating: Can a
one-loss SEC team pass an unbeaten Ohio State to play for a BCS
title?
None of that matters, at least for a few days
anyway.
What's tangible and in no way hypothetical is
an SEC Championship Game that's as stunning as anything in this crazy
season. Duke playing for an ACC crown? Florida's collapse? UCF in line
for its first BCS game? They're all great stories, but nothing will
capture the unlikeliness of 2013 like No. 3 Auburn and No. 5 Missouri
meeting Saturday in Atlanta.
There will be no
Alabama, Georgia, Texas A&M, LSU or South Carolina at the
Georgia Dome. Instead, the Tigers (The Plains version) went from 3-9 and
winless in the SEC in '12 to a West crown in their first year under Gus
Malzahn; and the Tigers (the Show-Me State variety) have gone from 5-7
(2-6) in their first season in the conference -- generating rumors Gary
Pinkel was on the hot seat -- to an East title.
Forget talk of destiny, this is more like absurdity
and you would have needed Grays Sports Almanac to have seen it
coming.
"I think about both teams being very hungry,"
Malzahn said. "We're kind of down at the bottom to start the year and
have improved. This time of year, there's not a lot of teams that
improve this late. I feel like we've improved each game. If
you look at them, they could probably say the same
thing."
It figures to be strength vs. strength.
Auburn, which is fifth in the nation at 318.3 rushing yards, just burned
the Crimson Tide -- ranked No. 4 vs. the rush at the time -- for 296
yards. Meanwhile, Missouri, which is second in the SEC against the run
(and 14th in FBS) in allowing 119.1 per, held Heisman Trophy winner
Johnny Manziel to 216 yards of offense, his lowest output of the
season.
"They're a great running football team with a
great quarterback and a great scheme that causes every defense
nightmares," Pinkel said. "We're athletic at the defensive end position.
The guys can run, they're physical."
The SEC's here
and now is an unlikely matchup of two turnaround teams. Though it could
lead to another less celebrated reality: the end of the league's
seven-year reign as college football's king.
No. 1
Florida State and No. 2 Ohio State are in the driver's seat to reach
Pasadena. Unless the Seminoles fall to Duke in the ACC title game or the
Buckeyes lose to Michigan State in the Big Ten finale, a one-loss SEC
winner will have to hope its resume can be enough to get it up to No. 2
to avoid the first national championship game since 2005 that didn't
include an SEC team.
That jump itself would be
unprecedented; no one-loss team has been voted over an undefeated from a
major conference in the format's 16 years. But it wouldn't entirely out
of the realm of possibility considering Ohio State had a scant .0270
lead over Auburn and was 0.1075 ahead of Missouri in the latest BCS
Standings
It's one final wrinkle in the last days of
the BCS, one that's only fitting for this much-maligned system. Pinkel
did his first bit of lobbying for it Sunday, saying "I think any one
loss team in the SEC, strength of schedule, hopefully that will be taken
into consideration for it."
But that debate must
wait, because this week belongs to a game that's a testament to a
topsy-turvy season.
This week belongs to Auburn and
Missouri.
We'll get into this in
greater detail in this week's Forecast, but this weekend saw the
candidacies of Manziel, Alabama's AJ McCarron and Fresno State's long
shot Derek Carr take hits, no one may have been hurt in more ways than
Boston College's Andre Williams.
Manziel and McCarron
will remain on a number of ballots regardless, and while Carr has been
intriguing, he wasn't going to win anyway -- no player from outside the
major conferences has taken the award since BYU's Ty Detmer in 1990, and
if anyone is going to challenge that this year, Northern Illinois'
Jordan Lynch is the more logical choice. Williams, though, saw a
burgeoning campaign damper as he was challenging
history.
The senior running back had run for 897
yards in his three previous games, vaulting him not just into the
conversation, but had some thinking he could legitimately challenge for
the award. Making a run at Barry Sanders' single-season rushing record
of 2,628 was going to be difficult, but the way Williams was running,
there was the possibility he was at least going to get around 2,500
yards. But he managed just 29 yards against Syracuse before aggravating
an ongoing shoulder problem that ended his day one carry into the third
quarter.
"There is a fine line between being a
liability and being able to help your team, and I had to make that
decision," Williams told reporters. "If I had gone back in there I would
have been a liability. There is no question this hurts. I was excited
to do something and we couldn’t do it."
Before he
left the Eagles' 34-31 loss, Williams did manage to become the ninth
player in FBS history to go over 2,100 yards rushing, but the defeat was
the end of Boston College's regular season, meaning it was his last
chance to impress voters before ballots are due Dec.
9.
He was already playing from behind in this race
with the Eagles not even a factor in the ACC race and now Boston College
is 7-5 and 4-4 in-conference. That would be the fewest wins by a
Heisman winner since Oklahoma's Steve Owens won in 1969 on a 6-4
team.
Williams may still get enough support to reach
New York based on having the biggest season for an RB -- 2,102 yards --
since Kevin Smith in '07, but the Orange's defense and Williams' health
have made winning the Heisman a near
impossibility.
Behold, the magic of
David Cutliffe. He has the Blue Devils at 10 wins for the first time in
school history and delivered their first ACC division crown. Never mind
that the Seminoles opened up as 29-point favorites in the ACC title
game, the mere idea that Duke is playing in this game will make whatever
happens in Charlotte secondary.
Is "keep Coach O" movement
still a thing? After winning six of his first seven games in taking
over for the fired Lane Kiffin, Ed Orgeron saw the Trojans fall 35-14 to
rival UCLA, marking the Bruins' first win at the Coliseum since 1997
and their second victory in a row in the series. Orgeron will surely
still get consideration to have his interim tag stripped and the way he
kept the program together was admirable, but he's now of two Trojans
coaches since 1995 to fall to UCLA and Notre Dame in the same season.
The other? Kiffin.
While Clemson and
Wisconsin saw their hopes of at-large BCS berths suffer in losses to
South Carolina and Penn State, respectively, the Bears kept their hopes
alive as they held off TCU 41-38. Should Bryce Petty and Co. get past
Texas on Saturday in Waco and end the regular season at 11-1, they'd be
an intriguing choice for an at-large (if they can't get an assist from
Oklahoma in beating Oklahoma State to give it the Big 12 title). Still,
it's expected the Orange Bowl will still take Clemson due to its ACC
ties and the Bears may need a loss from Northern Illinois to get that
berth. But the Bears bounced back after suffering their first loss to at
least stay in the conversation.
Speaking of BCS hopes,
Derek Carr and the Bulldogs' ended in spectacular fashion in a 62-52
loss to San Jose State in which they combined for 1,389 yards. "Put the
blame on me for the offense," said Carr, who threw for 519 yards, six
TDs and a fourth-quarter INT. "You guys want to praise me when it's good
-- Heisman this and all this. Blame me for the loss. I need to do a
better job to help my team win." Chances are the Bulldogs weren't going
to be able to pass Northern Illinois in the BCS Standings, but this loss
took some of the intrigue out of the final
weekend.
The Eagles avoided a
place in infamy, dumping UAB 62-27 in the season finale for their first
win of '13 and their first since dating back to the 2011 Hawaii Bowl, a
stretch of 23 consecutive losses. Had Southern Miss lost they would have
been the eight team in major college football history to have
back-to-back winless seasons and the first since Kansas State in
1987-88.
Tommy Rees threw two
fourth-quarter interceptions as the Fighting Irish dropped to 8-4 one
year after reaching the BCS title game. "It's not where we want to be;
losing is unacceptable," Kelly said. "An 8-4 record is not where we want
to be. We lost some tough games, but those are all excuses. We come to
Notre Dame to win football games." The Irish's eight wins tie for the
fourth-fewest by a team in the BCS era that played in the title game the
year before and its the worst since Auburn went 7-5 in the regular
season in '11.
Jordan Lynch broke his own FBS single-game
record for rushing yards by a QB with 321 vs. Western Michigan.
(Mike Dinovo-USA TODAY Sports-USA TODAY
Sports)
He broke his own FBS
record for rushing yards by a QB, burning Western Michigan for 321 and
three TDs in a 33-14 win. With Carr's slim Heisman hopes all but
finished, Lynch is certain to see an up-tick (the reality is, most
voters wouldn't have room for two non-BCS conference players on their
ballots) and now he has the Huskies one game away from a second straight
trip to a big-money bowl game.
He stepped in front of
Devin Gardner's two-point conversion attempt, picking it off and saving
the Buckeyes' hopes of playing for a national title. He got an assist
from secondary coach Kerry Coombs, who when Michigan's Brady Hokes opted
to go for two, told Powell one of two things was coming: a speed option
play or a pass out of a triple stack. The Wolverines went with the
latter and Powell jumped the route by Drew Dileo to seal Ohio State's
42-41 win.
The NCAA will only credit
him with 100 yards, but it was more like 109 as Davis fielded Adam
Griffith's 57-yard field goal and ran it back for a touchdown to beat
No. 1 Alabama 34-28 that rivals the greatest finishes in college
football history. "We're a team of destiny," Davis said. "We won't take
no for an answer."
A win would give the
Cowboys their second outright Big 12 title in three years, while a loss
would give the conference's Fiesta Bowl bid to the winner of
Baylor-Texas. The Sooners have scored 48 and 41 points since being
routed by the Bears, but those were wins over 3-9 Iowa State and Kansas
State, which is 5-4 in league play. This remains an Oklahoma D that gave
up 445 yards to Texas, 460 vs. Texas Tech and 459 against Baylor.
Oklahoma State, which is scoring 41.2 per (10th), will follow
suit.
The Pick: Oklahoma State 41, Oklahoma
27
The Spartans'
top-ranked defense hasn't allowed more than six points in five of the
last six games and a combined nine points the last two outings. But the
Buckeyes, who average 48.2 points (third in FBS) and 530.5 yards (sixth)
will be the best offense they've seen. That's the matchup that will be
on the marquee, but of more glaring importance is how Ohio State's pass
defense holds up. The Buckeyes gave up 451 yards and four TDs to Gardner
in the win over Michigan, exploiting what's been a major issue for Ohio
State, which ranks 98th (255.8) in that department. The question is,
can the Spartans, who are 95th through the air at 194 ypg, take
advantage of it? Braxton Miller and Co. will score, but Michigan State
may not have enough firepower to match them.
The Pick:
Ohio State 28, Michigan State 21
The Blue Devils have
largely gotten it done by being opportunistic on defense and balanced on
offense. They're not incredibly strong in one area, they're just solid
and have done just enough to win 10 games. It's not a knock, it's the
truth as Duke has played five games decided by seven points or less.
That won't get it done against the Seminoles, not with them poised to
cement a spot in the BCS title and not with Jameis Winston poised to
clinch a Heisman.
The Pick: Florida State 42, Duke
17
As we saw against Alabama's
defense, Auburn is dedicated to the run and facing another high-level
rush D, that's not going to change. The duo of Marshall and Tre Mason --
they combined for 263 of Auburn's 296 rushing yards vs. the Tide --
will be hard to stop and even if Missouri can manage it, Marshall has
shown the ability to stretch the field with the long ball. That should
allow him to take advantage of a Missouri pass defense that's giving up
266.3 ypg (110th) and keep Auburn's unexpected season going with -- at
the least -- a spot in the Sugar Bowl.
The Pick:
Auburn 34, Missouri 30
Last Week:
0-3
Overall: 27-11
