For a month I’ve nursed a case of cognitive dissonance, which is a fancy term for holding strong but opposing beliefs. On the one hand, I don’t believe a team with a defense as statistically bad as Auburn’s can win a national championship. On the other, I’ll believe an SEC team will lose the BCS title game only after seeing an SEC team lose the BCS title game. (And no, LSU losing to Alabama in January 2012 doesn’t count.)
A week ago I was leaning toward the latter bit of cognition. Having been on the ground in Orange County for four days, I’ve reassessed. I’m picking Florida State, not least because FSU seems more like an SEC team than Auburn.
Florida State spent the season beating up on teams from the lesser ACC, and there’s a part of me that wonders what will happen if the smooth-running Seminoles fall behind 14-0. (FSU hasn’t trailed since the final minute of the first half against Boston College on Sept. 28.) But the Seminoles have the better players, the better quarterback and the better defense. It wouldn’t be the biggest upset in the history of football if Auburn won. It would, however, be an upset.
Over four days of media sessions, the strange part was how seldom the SEC’s run of seven consecutive national championships was mentioned. That’s usually the elephant in the room at BCS title games, but the team with the elephant as its mascot isn’t here. Auburn folks will hate hearing this, but there’s an aura about Alabama and Nick Saban that doesn’t attach itself to the Tigers or to any other team in the land.
Even last season, when an Alabama team that had been beaten by Texas A&M and nearly felled by Georgia was matched against undefeated Notre Dame for the BCS title, the raging consensus was that the game was Bama’s to lose. (It won 42-10.) Auburn is similarly once-beaten, but with its leaky defense and hairbreadth escapes over Georgia and Alabama, the Tigers don’t appear inexorable in the way of Bama, or Florida with Tim Tebow, or even Auburn with Cam Newton. This time the big-name Heisman guy — Jameis Winston — plays for Florida State.
No, pregame perception isn’t always borne out on the field. With one second remaining on Nov. 30, did anyone really expect Auburn to beat Alabama? If the Tigers can score early — they’re capable of scoring fast and often — and frazzle Winston, the burden of proof will press down on the 8 1/2-point favorite.
Said Auburn linebacker Robenson Therezie, speaking of Winston: “I don’t think he’s seen the front four he’s about to face. It’s a completely different front four than he’s ever faced. I don’t think he’s seen the secondary (to match Auburn’s) … It’s completely different from all the other leagues he’s played in.”
Regarding FSU, that’s the imponderable. Was running the ACC table too easy? Have the mighty ’Noles been, to borrow a Lou Holtz phrase from a postseason past, been living a lie?
The guess is no. From that night in Glendale, Ariz., in January 2007, when Florida and Urban Meyer introduced No. 1 Ohio State to the concept of SEC Team Speed, the SEC rep in the BCS title game has had the bigger and faster players. Florida State is bigger and faster than Auburn. Remember, most of these Tigers were part of the team that went 0-8 in league play last season. Under Gus Malzahn, Auburn has maximized its strengths. Even so, this seems the least imposing SEC team to reach this lofty stage.
It’s no coincidence that Florida State has built a SEC-like roster. Coach Jimbo Fisher worked 13 seasons in the Tiffany League — six at Auburn under Terry Bowden, seven more at LSU under Saban and Les Miles. Auras and schemes are fun things for those of us on the periphery to discuss, but the game will be won by players making plays. As Fisher said Sunday, “We’re an extremely talented football team.”
It would be wrong to say that Auburn is here only because of luck. The Tigers put themselves in position to beat Georgia on a deflection and Alabama by returning a missed field goal. But the Prayer at Jordan-Hare was needed because the Tigers — and that defense, the likes of which Therezie believes FSU has never beheld — yielded three fourth-quarter touchdowns to a visiting team in seven minutes and 44 seconds.
Asked Saturday if he buys that team-of-destiny talk, Auburn quarterback Nick Marshall said: “I don’t believe in it at all.” In the final analysis, neither do I. Florida State has been the better team all season. Florida State will be the better team Monday night. FSU 38, Auburn 30.
