At first it was intriguing. Then it got comical. Then it became ridiculous. The championship game of the conference that takes football most seriously had been rendered something other than real football. Arena football, maybe. Or the NBA in the days before teams started double-teaming.
Whatever it was, once again it was enough. With Michigan State’s subequent upset of Ohio State, the SEC will, for the eighth consecutive season, send its champion to the BCS title game. In the end, Auburn didn’t even need to lobby, though it tried a bit of that. In the end, the SEC’s remarkable run of BCS luck held even in the final year of the BCS.
Full credit to Auburn for winning the SEC title Saturday and playing the better offense, and because the orange Tigers won we could say they played the better defense, too. But the better defense on this pinballing day was any defense at all. With 5:35 remaining in the third quarter, Auburn had amassed 424 yards and had scored five times — and it trailed.
It wasn’t so long ago — November 2011 and January 2012, to be precise — that SEC teams ranked Nos. 1 and 2 in the nation played one another twice, and through the first 7 2/3 quarters and one overtime neither Alabama nor LSU could manage a touchdown. On Dec. 7, 2013, the SEC championship was decided by teams that combined for 12 offensive touchdowns, 101 points and 1,211 yards.
Missouri scored 42 points, which would have been enough to win 18 of the first 21 SEC title games, and gained 534 yards, which would have ranked third in this game’s history, and still Mizzou never had anything approaching a handle on this game. That’s because the gold Tigers never could put a hand on Tre Mason, the Auburn back who rushed for 304 yards, nearly breaking the existing SEC championship record of 201 in the first half.
“We feel like we have the most balanced team in the country,” Mason spoke into a CBS microphone afterward, although Florida State and Ohio State hadn’t yet started their games. On offense, Auburn is among the best in the history of college football. But does being really good at one thing make you great?
Of the 156 snaps in this overlong affair, an unbelievable 39 went for 10 or more yards. Missouri entered ranked second in the SEC in run defense, and this day it yielded 545 rushing yards, or more than 4 1/2 times its average.
When it was finally done, someone wondered how an opponent might stop Gus Malzahn’s raging offense. In a moment of overwhelming honesty, Missouri coach Gary Pinkel said: “I’m the wrong person to ask.”
Auburn scored on nine possessions. The longest spanned four minutes. The average of those nine was 1:15. Forget Alabama versus LSU, circa 2011. This was Loyola-Marymount playing anybody in basketball, circa 1989. Neither side gave ground at all grudgingly. Indeed, there were times when both teams appeared content just to let the other one score to get the ball back.
The laugh-out-loud point came late in the third quarter, when Auburn scored with 31 seconds remaining to take an 11-point lead, and 22 seconds later the margin had been reduced to a field goal. And even then it wasn’t clear that the period would end without another score. Auburn’s Corey Grant rushed for 43 yards to the Missouri 32 on the quarter’s final snap.
Malzahn, who became the first man to win the SEC Championship game in his first season as head coach at that school, was ahead of Missouri all game, and with four minutes left in the first quarter he called for an onside kick. (Auburn recovered.) Forget defense and field position and old-man-football stuff like that, Malzahn was essentially saying: this game would be about having the ball and fleeing downfield with it.
No matter how bizarre the final steps were, Auburn’s ascent to this SEC championship has been astonishing. Over its past three games, Auburn yielded 38 points to Georgia, 28 to Alabama and 42 to Missouri — and won every time. This time serendipity wasn’t required. Auburn was so good on offense that the ball’s bounces meant nothing.
This time a year ago, Auburn had just hired Malzahn to replace Gene Chizik, who in two years had dragged the Tigers from a national championship to winless in the SEC. Malzahn had been Chizik’s offensive coordinator in the Cam Newton-fueled season of 2010, and it’s clear now who had more to do with that improbable run. It’s also clear that Malzahn had something even more improbable in him.
This SEC title having been seized, the unassuming Malzahn made his case for a bigger prize. Did his team deserve to play for the BCS title? “We’re the SEC champion … we played the toughest schedule,” he said. “We’re playing our best football. There are a lot of teams that aren’t getting better each week, but this team is.”
Not sure if Auburn is playing the best football. Not sure if Auburn is playing football as we know it at all. But the best offense? Definitely. And now the best offense is headed for Pasadena and a date with Florida State.
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