Ok, Auburn wins in a close game. Neither team played very well. Where was the Oregon offensive juggernaut? Where was Oregon's awesome speed? Auburn was bigger and at least as fast (and yes I am talking about all 11). I will agree both teams looked very ordinary. I guess turnovers are not a problem if each team has an equal number of them. :shock:
Newton didn't run all that well last night....went down like a ton of bricks when touched and that was surprising. Fairly was an absolute beast and he plays dirty a la Darnell Dockett style. MVP was probably Fairly with Dyer a close second. The Auburn defensive speed had a lot to do with Oregon's average offensive showing.
Tim, that is really lame. Corey, I agree that the most deserving team won. Seemed to me that the Auburn DL dominated the Oregon OL most of the night. MCG, Newton had an injury last night, but he was stopped pretty well with his running game, but Auburn showed they also had other weapons. It was a sloppy game with not as much offense as I expected. However it was a pretty entertaining game with two teams that in my opinion deserved to be there. The surprise of the game to me was Auburn's defenses.
Very entertaining game last night. Just a few thoughts. First, the Duck secondary was really poor at times. I guess that they had to commit to stop Newton from running but often they were 10 yds. from receivers. THE play of the game was McNeil stopping Tuinei with a shoestring tackle on the 2. Kelly eventually passed up a FG and the Ducks got nothing out of that drive. (Sometimes the Riverboat Gambler taps out.) I was incredibly impressed by Fairley up to the post game interview. What did he say?
Both teams missed opportunities, Auburn had a sure TD pass on 4th and 1 and Newton threw it into the dirt. At least 1 time Newton had a kid wide open with nothing but goal line and missed him on the pass. The thing that stuck out to me was that all that misdirection, with WR's running behind the QB, and 3 WR bunched on one side and everybody running different directions never really worked. During the season that created all sorts of gaps for those fast little backs to cut up field for big gains. In this game they just got stoned, Auburn was able to find the ball and overpower the Duck OL and their backs. I didn't believe BuckeyeT when he was sort of not impressed with the Duck offense and reminded us that the Ohio State Defense stuffed it last year. I mean everybody said Auburn was a good not great defense. But with the time to prepare Auburn was not confused by all the motion and trickery, they stayed with the ball and stuffed them. I want to give the Duck Defense some credit, they did hold Auburn to 22 points and they were hard earned points, but they really never could get the upper hand on Auburn. As Saban pointed out at half time, Auburn was pretty consistently gashing them up the middle for 4 or 5 yds on 1st down. And how many times did Oregon end up with a DE on a RB on a wheel route. Saban called that as well, he wanted the Ducks to get into a Nickel defense and I don't think they ever did. I can understand why you SEC guys are pretty proud, 5 in a row is a big achievement with no end in site. But you'll understand why I'm tired of Boston, New York Yankees, and now the SEC!! Of course if ND won 5 in a row I wouldn't get tired of that! :wink:
It seemed as if Auburn's overall speed enabled them to blow up many of those trick type plays. With regard to the SEC's streak....Kirk Herbstreidt pointed out that going back to UF beating FSU in Nawlins back in 1996 for the NC the SEC is 8-0 in title game opportunities. 8-0 vs. that kind of competition is no fluke.
The SEC has a great streak going. But what is going to happen, and I'm surprised it hasn't up to now, is that with the parity ad a number of good teams in the conference there is going ot be a year where no team has one loss or less. Auburn had to have an incredible second half and a lot of luck to beat Bama. The replay last night where Bama had a 24 - 0 lead and runner in the clear heading toward the end zone where the ball was knocked loss and went to the end zone where Auburn recovered was a play that saved Auburn's season. But I'll enjoy the streak while it's going on and hope we get to join the fun again.
He also said that he thought the difference was the SEC DL's. He's probably right. SEC right now is clearly the best conference. Doesn't mean they should get an automatic pass through to the BCS title game every year any more than the Yankee's should get a pass through to the WS every year because they've won so many WS titles. Every year is a new year, and eventually the SEC will lose and things will go in another direction. I remember the NFC had a streak going against the AFC in the Super Bowl, so much so that people were starting to say it wasn't fair that the NFC championship game was the real Super Bowl and that there should be a seeding of the playoffs so that the 2 best teams get to play (assumption of course was that it would be the 2 top NFC teams) in the Super Bowl. AFC also had a streak at one time where they seemed invincible.
Nice for us Gator fans that UF owns a 3-0 record in that 8-0 SEC NC title game record. Terry.....it's not so much a "free pass" into the title game. It is an "all things being equal" pass. That is a pass which I have debated strongly on this board is well deserved. It will continue to be well deserved until as you have stated.....things change.
Terry, The analogy to the Yankees is not appropriate. MLB has a playoff. No polls, no opinions, either they play themselves into the WS and win the last game or they don't. The FBS does not have that option. :cry:
Obviously MLB is a different set up and can do different things. The BCS as I have stated before is a huge improvement over what existed before....at least we get Auburn vs. Oregon instead of a split title.
I understand that MLB has a playoff. But the analogy is still the same, Yankees have long history of being the best, but every year they have to earn it again. They don't get a pass even if they win 125 games one year and kill everybody in the regular season. That is what Dave is suggesting that the SEC has earned the right to be awarded 1 slot in the BCS championship game because they have haven't lost a champ game since 1996, including now 5 in a row....if all things are equal, implying that like this year, where there were 3 undefeated teams that no matter what the SEC deserved and should have automatically been slotted for 1 side of the game and let Oregon/TCU fight for the other slot. I say, great you've been terrific for 5 years, but next year is a new year no points given for past deeds!
Funny.. Oregon's offense sucked because of Auburn's defense but Auburn's offensive juggernaut was stopped because of.... Auburn? Oh brother.. Both teams missed opportunities. If you know anything about the read/zone option, and you break down tape of this game, you'll see that Thomas' (Oregon's QB) made the INCORRECT decision more than 80% of the time. At least that... I know it's not as obvious as a wide open WR dropping a pass (Oregon's didn't have the option to drop many since he just flat out missed them when they were wide open), but it's glaring when their outside contain collapses on the RB. You may not realize it because the camera focuses on the action in the backfield but that's a minimum 20-25 yard gain before anyone wearing a blue jersey gets near him. The kid played scared, he threw scared... IMHO, he was the difference in the game. Newton was hammered on play after play. Say what you want about that kid's eligibility but he's a tough SOB.
Yet it happens time and time again. The argument for the benefit of the doubt is due to strength and depth of conference, yet the SEC went 5-5 in bowl games this year. The conference with the best bowl record (yet again) produced an undefeated Champion who didn't even get to play for the title. On field results mean nothing in this system, absolutely nothing. In the 'not spilled milk, I seriously wanna know' category: I do have a question from a Tide fan watching that game... When the RB (Dyer) was ruled not down... why wasn't the real question, why isn't the defensive player down.. Dyer did lose control of that football. Control was shared all the way down to the ground where the defensive player was clearly down. While Dyer was never down, you can see in the replay he clearly wrestles the ball away from the defender when he gets up. That was join possession until that moment. I get that in cases of joint possession, the 'tie goes to the offensive player'.. but what about this situation of being down? Anyone aware of some goofy rule/exception? Not that the kicker wouldn't have nailed it anyway, but I thought the question was valid.
I didn't remember him wrestling the ball away from the duck. But there are many, many instances of players rolling over downed defenders and getting up and running and being declared never down. That was a weird play, but looked to me to be perfectly legal.
Terry, They've shown the replay over and over on ESPN, it's pretty clear. The defender tackling him is trying to strip the ball.. Dyer covers up and gets spun 'down'.. As he's going down, he loses control of it and it's a joint control kinda deal. Not a big deal, it happens all the time. What I don't get though is how the defensive player wasn't 'down' because he clearly was and they both had the ball. Dyer takes it from him as he gets up.
Terry....the key statement is "all things being equal".... There could be five undefeated teams next season but if the SEC is one of them....."all things being equal"....how would anybody deny the SEC one of the two spots after considering the 8-0 run the league is on in the title game. I mean....would the other 4 candidates have something as weighty and significant as that to consider in their favor over the SEC candidate? What in the world could that be? Now....if it is a mathematical fact that the SEC team's schedule is an absolute creampuff joke.....and totally outclassed by two of the other 4 candidates then maybe all things are not equal but do you even see a remote chance of that happening? Until the SEC Conference schedule is frowned upon as creampuff and until the SEC does a BCS Bowl game flop at least 2-3 years running I don't see this changing.
As an impoverished American in one of the "other" conferences outside of the SEC I feel an unfair ongoing monopoly exist in the SEC. This monopoly needs to be broken up in a gesture of fairness and good will toward other college football loving Americans. I submit that the great Jesse Jackson should step in to see this great atrocity stopped and through the greatness of our current Administration all current SEC teams should play with only one shoe and no helmet. This correction of the current monopoly should go far in correcting the wrongness of SEC dominance... :twisted: