BCS Preview 2011 - National Championship Game

The last game of the 2010-2011 bowl season has the potential to be one of the best national championship games ever. Unfortunately, this has been said before and the last “Greatest Game of All Time” turned into a laugher when Oklahoma got pounded by USC 55-19.

There have been several years over the history of the BCS where the participants in the title game were up for debate and few times have the two teams been the most obvious choices to square off for the hardware. With all due respect to TCU, this is one of those years. I do believe that TCU deserves a shot at the national title but given how they have played this year, I don’t think that TCU should be ranked ahead of either Auburn or Oregon. This game promises to provide plenty of fireworks as neither defense ended up as one of the top in the country while both offenses put up yards and points like few other teams in the country.

The backdrop to this match-up is the entire Cam Newton “Pay-For-Play” fiasco that embroiled the Tigers football program this year. I would love to believe the results of the investigation and say that Cam Newton had no knowledge of what his father was doing but it just seems a little fishy to me that he didn’t know anything at all. Having said that, no evidence of Newton’s wrongdoing has been presented so until proven guilty, he is innocent in my mind and should be eligible to play in this game. I am just worried that five years from now, it will be declared that he had knowledge of the plan all along and his Heisman Trophy will be vacated and the Tigers magical national championship season will be vacated from the record books. Maybe that would be enough for the NCAA to reexamine their policies when it comes to amateur athletes.

Yeah, right…

BY THE NUMBERS

Offensively, the numbers are very similar.

- Oregon ranked 4th in rushing yards per game, Auburn was 6th.
- Oregon was 48th in passing yards, Auburn was 69th.
- Oregon was 2nd in total yards per game, Auburn was 7th.
- Oregon led the nation in points per game, Auburn was 6th.

Defensively, there are some similarities and some differences. Both of these teams were outstanding against the rush, but the numbers are good for different reasons. Auburn ranked 11th against the rush and that ranking is a little more legitimate than Oregon’s ranking of 16th because of the way these two teams took their leads. Likewise, Oregon’s ranking against the pass (56th) is much more inflated than Auburn’s ranking (105th) for the same reason. Auburn was a notoriously slow starting team this year, falling behind numerous times and using a flurry of Cam Newton’s Heismanesque talents to come back in the second half. This means that throughout the game, Auburn’s opponents were most likely trying to utilize a balanced offensive attack and they found that they could chew up yardage through the air but not on the ground.

On the other side, Oregon started somewhat slowly but in the middle of the season when the Blur Offense was at its high octane best, they would start to outpace their opponents late in the second quarter and early in the third. This means that for anywhere from one entire quarter to three entire quarters, Ducks’ opponents had few opportunities for a balanced offense. When you’re trying to make a comeback, you have to air the ball out to get points quickly. Therefore, the passing numbers will be abnormally high and the rushing numbers abnormally low.

What that all means is that Auburn’s run defense is for real and their pass defense is dreadful. On the other side, it just means that Oregon’s defense probably should have been ranked somewhere between 20-40 against both the rush and the pass instead of 16th and 56th. The other important thing to take away from that little bit of conjecture is that there is little doubt around college football circles that Oregon’s defense is in a class above Auburn’s defense and this could be a game where the first team to punt might just lose.

THE TIGERS WILL WIN BECAUSE…

They have Cam Newton. He was one 11 yard completion away from averaging over 200 yards passing and over 100 yards rushing per game. He led the nation in passing efficiency (sidenote: at the time that I wrote about the Heisman Trophy race a few weeks ago, he was second in efficiency to Kellen Moore but passed him with his performance in the SEC title game) with outstanding metrics: 67% completion percentage, 10.52 yards per attempt, and a 28-6 touchdown to interception ratio. On top of all that, he led the SEC in rushing yards.

Let me say that again: HE LED THE SEC IN RUSHING YARDS. The SEC has a history of producing some great running backs and yet this year, nobody in the conference rushed for more yards than a quarterback. The biggest difference that I see between Newton and Michael Vick (the last quarterback to cause this kind of hubbub over his running skills) is defenses were afraid of Vick throwing the ball but considering that he completed only 56.3% of his college passes, they were more afraid of his running ability. Vick was able to run for so many yards with his sheer athleticism and speed.

By contrast, Cam Newton has shown that while he may not be the most polished passer in the FBS ranks right now, he’s still very good and if you put that extra man or two in the box to stop him, he can exploit man coverage in the secondary. Then, if you drop those extra rushers back into coverage and you give him space and time, he will hurt you on the ground. Then you have a big strong, six foot six, two hundred fifty pound guy with long arms running rampant through your secondary. Just try and tackle him.

KEY STAT: Auburn ranked 105th in passing yards allowed, 75th in passer efficiency allowed, and 54th in points per game allowed.

THE DUCKS WILL WIN BECAUSE…

Auburn won’t be able to keep up with the Blur. Chip Kelly has toned back his game planning recently, wanting to get victories to ensure his team’s spot in the top two of the final BCS standings but I would expect that to change completely against Auburn. I would expect the Blur to be at its holy-crap-they-already-snapped-the-ball-again finest.

Auburn is extremely good against the rush but will they be able to maintain that intensity and focus for 60 minutes against the Blur, especially when you consider that they probably won’t get too much help from their secondary. Oregon’s offense was at its scary best when Darron Thomas was hitting receivers downfield and the reason for this is simple. As a defensive lineman, if you stop a rushing attempt for a gain of one yard and you know that from the time the ball is spotted you have seven seconds to get set, you’ll only have to move a few yards to get in position. But what happens when Thomas hits a receiver over the middle for a 20 yard gain? You have to sprint 20 yards to get into position and then line up against an offensive line that has been running those types of sprints all year long. Now you just had to sprint 20 yards and you’re going against a 300 pound guard who isn’t as winded as you and he’s about to square you up and drive you off the line.

It doesn’t sound like it would be a big advantage when you consider that these are the best college football teams in the country but over the course of a 60 minute game, it will wear down Auburn’s defensive line. It wouldn’t surprise me at all for the Tigers to take a lead into halftime and then lose it all in the third quarter, which would set up a fantastic race to the finish in the fourth quarter.

Despite missing their first game due to a team imposed suspension, sophomore LaMichael James still led the nation in rushing yards with 1,682. Even though his stature is small (5’9’’, 185 pounds), he has been very durable this year, surpassing 25 carries on 8 different occasions. We also cannot forget that Thomas is also a competent ball carrier, rushing for nearly 500 yards this year while averaging 5.8 yards per carry.

KEY STAT: Oregon’s defense was very opportunistic, ranking seventh this season in turnover margin at +1.08.

THE VERDICT

Both of these teams have gotten a reputation as being slow starters but it’s for different reasons. In the games that I have watched of theirs’ this year, Auburn struggled offensively in the first half of games. Oregon, however, seemed to be feeling their opponents out and wearing them down, knowing that with the conditioning of their entire team, nobody can stay with them for 60 minutes.

In the second half, the Tigers’ defense would then step up and start coming through with key stops while Cam Newton would do his Heisman thing. Oregon would play roughly the same way that they did in the first half but the difference is that the opposing defense is now exhausted so instead of rushes up the middle for 3 or 4 yards, those carries start going for 10 or 12 yards… or sometimes 75.

The way I see this game panning out is Auburn will take the lead into halftime and everyone will start saying that this is going to be unusual because Newton has brought this team back from 4 second half deficits, in three of which they were still trailing in the fourth quarter. Therefore, a lot of people will jump on the Auburn bandwagon.

In the third quarter, Oregon will simply blow the doors off the place and they will remind people why the Blur Offense is as devastating as it is. Cam Newton will try for one more comeback to cap off his amazing season in the fourth quarter but it will be too little, too late.

Oregon 49, Auburn 45