Dealing in big numbers and little doubt, Florida State does football like Tyler Perry does show business.

The Seminoles revel in their reputation for turning every game into a virtual bye, contests that by the second half are as competitive as a solo tug-of-war. That is the same attitude they would bring to Monday night’s BCS National Championship game against Auburn. They want to ensure that America gets a good night’s sleep before its busy work day Tuesday.

“The NCAA has all these rules, but it does not say you can’t blow out everybody you play,” the Seminoles’ Heisman-winning quarterback Jameis Winston said during one of the week’s more interesting observations.

“Obviously this is going to be a real tough game for us because Auburn holds the ball all the time with their dynamic running game. (But) where in the rule book still does it say that we can’t blow out everybody we play? Alabama blew out Notre Dame in the championship game last year. We can do anything we want to do.”

And what of poor Auburn? All it has on its side is the fickle smile of providence. Lightning has struck the Tigers multiple times in just over three months — on a last-chance drive against Mississippi State, on a tipped ball against Georgia, and a length-of-the-field return of a missed field goal against Alabama. They have turned football into Powerball and they keep picking the winning six numbers.

“I call it more of a blessing than luck,” Auburn running back Tre Mason said. “But there’s a little bit of luck still in there, though, because those were crazy wins.”

Auburn vs. Florida State for the national championship represents a striking contrast in method. It is a collision of belief vs. statistics, a referendum between the romantic notion of destiny and the hard truths of the sledgehammer.

It is the Miracle Makers vs. the Spirit Breakers.

The gamblers are a flinty, practical lot. Only believing what they can touch and see, they have established FSU as a better than 8-point favorite. Miracles are for the movies, they have decreed.

The last two BCS Championship games have been lopsided, ratings-mufflers. Blame Alabama, winning both by a combined seven touchdowns. Now the challenge for that team’s biggest rival — and the SEC’s hope for extending its streak of consecutive championships to eight — is to at the very least make this one compelling.

As FSU was on its way home to Tallahassee after dusting off Florida by 30 on Thanksgiving week, it fully believed it was going to be meeting the Crimson Tide for the title.

“We were coming back from Gainesville and I think it was like five minutes left (in the Alabama-Auburn game) before we took off,” FSU linebacker Christian Jones said. “We were like: ‘I guess we’ll be playing ‘Bama in the championship game.’ We get back home and it was: ‘Oh, Auburn wins. What happened?’”

That is the surprising effect the Tigers have had on people all season.

For Florida State, just getting the starters to the fourth quarter of this one would be a departure. “We haven’t played a full game in a long time. That would be awesome,” Jones said. Only Boston College this season kept it close enough to compel FSU to play its starters from start to finish.

The Seminoles have won their 13 games by an average of 42 points. No one has gotten within two touchdowns of them at the finish. Exactly 571 minutes and 49 seconds of game time has elapsed since they last trailed in a game (second quarter, Sept. 28 vs. B.C.).

Meanwhile five of Auburn’s wins have been by a touchdown or less. There are all kinds of arguments, of course, that the Tigers have faced a more demanding gauntlet in their conference than Florida State has in the ACC. Don’t try that argument on another set of Tigers: Clemson just got its first BCS bowl win and the Seminoles hammered it 51-14 this season.

At least Auburn is prepared for whatever may come tonight. It has the experience of its close calls and the scar tissue to prove it. These Tigers will not be easily dispirited.

“If you look at our entire schedule we have been in some dogfight games, been in games where the pressure was on, on the road and at home, and our guys have responded,” coach Gus Malzahn said. “In big games I know they’re not going to panic. I got to believe that will help us.”

“If it comes down to a nail-biter, we find a way to win,” defensive end Dee Ford said.

There have been occasions in the build-up when a Florida State player has been asked to explain just how his team will react in the event of an actual, competitive fourth quarter. As if the Seminoles have missed out on an important character-building exercise by not allowing their opponents a closer view of their backsides in the closing minutes.

“We have got guys who have been through the fire, man,” Jones said. “We’ve lost close games we should have won and some of those games still stick with us. When it gets down to it, we know how to push through it because we’ve been through it in the last three years, losing to opponents we should have beaten in the fourth quarter.” Just not anytime lately.

There have been no apologies offered for Florida State’s marked disrespect for competitive balance. “We’re going to start fast. I can’t help that another team can’t keep up with us,” linebacker Telvin Smith said.

It is not exactly the scenario that an Auburn man would like to conjure, but center Reese Dismukes did it anyway this week: “Say we went down 21-0 against Florida State. We’ve been in that situation. So we kind of know what to expect, what it’s going to take.”

“We put ourselves in situations where we found a way to win the game in the fourth quarter. If we’re within 14 points going into the fourth quarter, we feel like we have a shot to win the game and that we will have a good shot,” he said.

Against such faith, Florida State is the greatest trial yet.