Auburn defeats South Carolina for SEC title

The trip home was dicey, mud-splattered.

The arrival was a mixture of pure pleasure and wonder.

With a fresh coat of eligibility applied only three days earlier, Cam Newton returned to Atlanta on Saturday and laid claim to Auburn’s seventh SEC title.

Behind Newton, the unbeaten Tigers made the SEC championship game as competitive as a quilting bee, knocking out South Carolina 56-17. He and Auburn will face Oregon in the Arizona desert Jan. 10 for the BCS national championship.

Without needing to say it, South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier said it anyway: “Auburn is a lot better than us.”

“I told our guys before the game this was going to be our finest hour,” said Spurrier’s winning counterpart, Gene Chizik. “They were prepared, focused, locked in, and they played like it.”

No one more than Newton. He never got to play inside the Georgia Dome as a star at Westlake High School. Its white Teflon coated roof rises only 15 miles from his Atlanta home.

But by the time he made Atlanta’s big room, Newton was more than ready.

The Auburn junior finished a pleasant afternoon of pitch-and-catch, throwing for 335 yards and four touchdowns. His favorite target was also home-grown, Harrison High’s Darvin Adams catching seven of Newton’s passes for 217 yards and two touchdowns.

Before exiting the game with seven minutes to play, Newton also ran for 73 yards and a pair of touchdowns. He pushed his season touchdown total to 28 passing and 20 rushing, becoming only the second 20/20 player in college history (joining the chap he once played behind at Florida, Tim Tebow).

Newton has been dogged for the past month by allegations of money solicitation during the recruiting process that eventually landed him at Auburn this season. Just Wednesday, the NCAA reaffirmed his eligibility while ruling that his father, Cecil, had unsuccessfully shopped his son at Mississippi State.

The dueling T-shirt war of the fans milling around the championship game was predictable. “Scam Newton” was a message favored by the South Carolina faithful. “War Damn Eagle -- Cam is Legal” was spotted on the person of a proud Auburn fan.

But Newton’s gift for legacy building in the face of turmoil has taken on an almost ordained quality. No further proof was needed than the what-the-heck 51-yard pass Newton threw at the close of the first half. In the end zone, South Carolina’s DeVonte Holloman tipped the ball. ... into the waiting arms of Adams.

“Everything [his players] got tonight they deserved,” said Chizik -- including even one providential reception.

The Tigers specialized this season in playing from behind, mounting a series of harrowing comebacks against the likes of Alabama, Georgia, Clemson and, earlier, South Carolina. They trotted out a completely different tact this time.

Two plays into Saturday, Newton hit Adams for a 62-yard completion. Two plays after that, Newton hit Onterio McCalebb for a 12-yard scoring pass.

With Florida, Spurrier had devised all sorts of winning plans in going 4-1 in conference championship games in the Dome. But there was nothing he could scheme that could keep up with the likes of Newton. The Gamecocks took their first possession into the end zone, but still, inexorably, slipped further and further behind against an opponent that could have dressed its punter in a tuxedo.