So this is how the SEC’s hammerlock on college football is broken. Not simply, certainly. Not by fluke or fancy. It had to be pried loose with the crowbar of big plays and high drama.
At the same time, the BCS system was retired at the Rose Bowl on Monday night in high style, with the wildest of its 16 championship games. Florida State required every last bit of its talent and speed to subdue Auburn 34-31 in a game decided when the fourth-quarter clock glowed 00:13.
It was the Seminoles’ Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback, Jameis Winston, relatively silent for three quarters, who took the Noles on a 80-yard drive in 58 seconds to win the moment. Happy birthday, Famous Jameis. He turned 20 on Monday.
“It’s the best football game he played all year,” FSU coach Jimbo Fisher said of his quarterback, who threw for 237 yards on 20-of-35 passing with two touchdowns. “For three quarters he was up and down and he fought. And just like any great player, some nights you don’t have it. … But to pull it out in this atmosphere and environment and with what was on the line tonight, to me if that’s not a great player, I don’t know what one is.”
The Seminoles won their third national championship and first since 1999. Conversely, Auburn will stand as the answer to the trivia question: Which SEC team lost to break the conference’s borderline ridiculous streak of seven consecutive national titles.
“The SEC is great football, I coached in that league for 13 years. I respect every bit of it, but there’s some other folks in this country that can play some football, too,” Fisher said.
Auburn spent all season teaching others how it felt to be tasered by some big play near game’s end. Now it was the Tigers’ turn to feel the sting. There were 24 points scored in the final 4:31 of the game, 14 of them belonging to the Noles. First among them was Kermit Whitfield’s 100-yard kickoff return. Then it was Winston to Kelvin Benjamin on a 2-yard touchdown toss to bring a close to the momentary madness.
And thus did the miracles finally ran out for Auburn.
Florida State had become accustomed to putting away its ACC brethren shortly after the coin toss. Entering Monday night the Seminoles had outscored all opponents 162-35 in the first quarter and 269-62 in the first half.
Against Auburn, it became quickly evident they weren’t in the Atlantic Division any more.
First, Auburn stripped away the veneer of invincibility the Seminoles had applied with such care to this season. Didn’t take all that long, either. With just more than two minutes left in the first quarter, Nick Marshall dumped a pass to the all-purpose Tre Mason, who beat the world to the end zone from 12 yards out. With the touchdown, the Tigers took a 7-3 lead, representing the first time FSU trailed in a game in the last 583 minutes and 53 seconds of game time (dating to Sept. 28).
The amount of fraying around the very carefully tailored hems of the FSU was stunning. No Seminole was within 10 yards of Auburn receiver Melvin Ray as he broke behind the FSU defense and collected an uncontested 50-yard scoring pass. That made the score Auburn 14-3.
Then Winston was relieved of the ball, his fumble recovered by linebacker Anthony Swain on the Florida State 27. Six plays later, Marshall skittered around the left side for a 4-yard touchdown run. Auburn 21, Florida State 0 and believability stretched to its limit. The nearly double-digit underdog Tigers seemed poised to win by ambush.
Fisher applied a little special defibrillation to his gasping team in the form of a fake punt from his own 40-yard line. Karlos Williams delivered at the business end of a razzle-dazzle reverse fake, picking up 7 yards on fourth-and-4.
That seemed to jolt the Seminoles upright, especially Winston. His third-down 21-yard run, complete with a stiff-arm that planted Auburn linebacker Kris Frost like a spring bulb, set up FSU 3 yards from end zone. Tailback Devonta Freeman negotiated those the next play.
The half ended with FSU trailing 21-10, the serial thumper now in the role of thumpee. It was a temporary condition.
Auburn began to buckle when it yielded a short field to an opponent that didn’t need it, thanks to a Marshall interception early in the fourth quarter. And FSU pounced, driving for a touchdown that made it 21-19 and left them a two-point conversion away from possibly tying the game.
However, an unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty on the other side of the field from Chad Abram’s catch-and-run touchdown took the Seminoles out of range for any such attempt. The call went against Freeman, for chirping at the Auburn sideline.
Then it got really serious. Then a football game took on the feel of a Wimbledon final, the teams trading points like fellows in short pants trade forehands.
How about three lead changes in those last four-and-a-half minutes? How about Auburn seemingly seizing control on Tre Mason’s 37-yard touchdown run with 1:19 left — “Yeah, felt pretty good there,” said Auburn coach Gus Malzahn — only to see that evaporate in the dry air of southern California?
But FSU had time left, and they had the most dynamic player in the game. “I wanted to be in that situation because that’s what great quarterbacks do. That’s what you’re judged by, especially by your teammates,” Winston said.
And that’s how the power structure in college football got reordered in one night.
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