| 11 January 2011
One of my favorite things about following the sport of college football is watching a championship team’s personality form.
Every team has one. Sometimes it takes weeks to develop, sometimes years. Sometimes it only comes after a loss. But there’s nothing more enjoyable than watching a team at the end of a season- often times one you have no affiliation with- and feeling like you “know,” them. Feeling like you know their strengths and weaknesses. That you know how they’ll handle pressure. Again, that you just know their personality.
In 2007, the LSU Tigers took the shape of their goofy coach, the Mad Hatter Les Miles. When you played the Tigers, no lead was safe. No play call too outlandish. By the time the BCS National Championship Game rolled around, it seemed like it’d take a team-wide case of mononucleosis to keep the Tigers from winning the title.
With Florida the following year it was more simplistic. The Gators lost early in the season, and it was at that point Tim Tebow made a speech promising that Florida would every game for the rest of the season. Simply, the Gators just weren’t losing from there on out. They didn’t, straight through a title game victory over Oklahoma.
Last year with Alabama, it was much the same. The Crimson Tide were 85 guys, young and old, experienced and not, all part of Nick Saban’s “process.” Nobody was bigger than anybody else. Everyone was committed to the sole goal of finishing the season 14-0 with a crystal ball at the Rose Bowl. And it happened the first week of January.
So what was Auburn’s personality this year? It was about overcoming adversity. For a group of seniors who had seen it all. For a coach who no one wanted. And for college football’s best player. Even as the Tigers trailed early and were tied late in Monday’s National Championship Game, it just seemed like Auburn had too many guys, who’d been through too much, over too many years, not to step up to the biggest challenge of their lives. And that's exactly what happened.
Of course the win over Oregon didn’t come without some luck. Even the best teams need a little.
The defining play, in the defining season in recent Auburn history, happened when freshman running back Michael Dyer was given the ball with under two minutes to go, and was tackled by Oregon defensive back Eddie Pleasant…sort of. Dyer’s knee never touched the ground, meaning- that with some help from a few buddies on the sidelines- Dyer was free to continue to run, which he did, finally getting tackled at the 23-yard line, after a 37 yard gain. Five plays later, Wes Byrum nailed a chip shot field goal, and Auburn was the 2011 BCS National Champions.
And it was that run, and that play, which was symbolic of Auburn’s season on so many fronts.
For starters, it was just Auburn’s year. Plain and simple. Everything leading into and through 2010, all the breaks, bounces and overturns, always seemed to go the Tigers way.
Honestly, it all started with the commitment of Newton back at the end of 2009. You need luck with a lot of things in a title year, and the Tigers got the perfect player, for the perfect system at the perfect time. Newton walked onto campus with a chip on his shoulder, but with a group of players who allowed him to turn that edge into wins. He played behind college football’s most experienced and talented line, and with a group of skill position guys that complimented his freaky skills perfectly. It didn’t hurt that the guy calling the plays just so happened to be the best coordinator in the business.
Everything kept coming up Auburn when the schedule came out. The Tigers got Clemson, South Carolina, Arkansas, LSU and Georgia all at home. Granted, that wasn’t the only reason Auburn won the BCS title, and they still had to beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa just to play for an SEC Championship. Still, it certainly didn’t hurt that their schedule was paved with a whole lot of home games at Jordan-Hare Stadium, with most of their road games at least manageable.
And once the season did start, well again, all the breaks and bounces kept coming up Auburn. There was a fumble bouncing into Zac Ethridge’s hands that he returned for a touchdown to swing the Arkansas game. And of course, who could forget a perfectly thrown Newton bomb falling untouched to Darvin Adams that blew open the SEC Championship Game. It’s easy to forget now, but South Carolina had just scored a touchdown, and seized momentum in that game. Then Newton to Adams happened, and the rout was on. SEC officials might as well have just called off the game right there.
But that’s just the kind of stuff that happened at Auburn all year. Which is why I wasn’t surprised when Dyer’s knee was ruled to have stayed off the ground Monday night. Of course his knee didn’t touch the ground! Why would it, on the most important play of the most important game of the season? Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good. Thankfully for Auburn fans, the Tigers were both all year.
The win over Oregon also symbolized the “all in” mentality Auburn carried all season long. That was just Auburn this season: 85 guys having each other’s backs, in the pursuit of going from “good” in 2009 to “great” in 2010. Yes Cam Newton was the star. But the Tigers didn’t get to 14-0 because of him alone.
You see, that was the thing SEC fans tried to hold over the head of Auburn fans at the beginning of the season. That their team was just “Cam Newton and the Camettes.”
I distinctly remember having the audacity to say that I thought Auburn was a player for the National Championship after the Arkansas win back in the middle of October, to which I had fellow SEC fans call me a dope (Although in their defense, I usually am). LSU fans told me to wait until Auburn played LSU. Alabama fans told me to wait until they played the Tide. Auburn had no defense they told me. They’re a one man offense. BCS National Championship Game? They weren’t even going to win the SEC West.
Well they did. And if Monday night proved anything, it’s that although the “one man team” moniker got thrown out the window a long time ago, it was never actually true to begin with.
Why? Well for starters, the BCS National Championship Game could very well have been Newton’s worst in a Tigers uniform. He didn’t look comfortable in the pocket all game long. The normally gaping running lanes weren’t there. Newton had some uncharacteristic turnovers. He was clearly hurt. Say what you want about Monday night’s game, but there’s no doubt that nobody played the Tigers- and Newton in specific- tougher than Oregon did.
Still, for whatever Cam lacked Monday night, his teammates stepped up to fill in the void. Dyer had the best game of his career. Onterrio McCalebb averaged over seven yards a carry when he was called upon. And the maligned Tigers defense that was the butt of so many jokes this season, kept coming up with stops. They held an Oregon offense that put up points like the best Madden player in a college dorm to just 19 over 60 minutes. Like they did all season long, the Tigers defense made plays when the team absolutely needed them.
Really though, it all goes back to where this article started, with overcoming obstacles. No team had to deal with more off the field, part of the reason they had so much success on it.
For starters, let’s give credit to this group of seniors, and upperclassmen in general.
As offensive lineman Lee Ziemba told reporters all year, these upperclassmen went through just about everything that a college football player can over their four or five years at Auburn. They dealt with a disastrous coordinator change early on. They saw the coach that recruited them fired. And spent this year watching as the NCAA snooped around every dumpster and dorm room on campus, looking for any piece of dirt to blow up the problem. Remember too that Kodi Burns was only still on the team after being forced to give up his starting quarterback spot two years ago. Hell, Zac Ethridge almost lost the ability to walk after being taken off the field on a stretcher last year. Yet for these guys, no controversy was bigger than the team itself, and just winning games. As Gene Chizik kept saying last night, the win was for the “Auburn family.”
Speaking of Chizik, what about him? The poor coach had the approval rating of post-divorce Tiger Woods when he got to campus just around two years ago. Not just by Auburn fans, but by casual observers like me too.
And as always, I was proven to be an idiot. Forget whatever happened at Iowa State, because Chizik hasn’t done much wrong since the day he got to Auburn. He handled the uncertainty around his arrival with class, then went out and brought in the best coaches and players he could find.
More importantly, with all the turmoil around his team this year, Chizik defended his players relentlessly through every accusation, press conference and leaked rumor throughout the season. A lot of coaches promise to become a “father figure,” during the recruiting process, and truthfully, that’s exactly what I felt like he was throughout this entire season. Chizik is a guy I’d let my son play for any day of the week.
Finally, it all comes back to Newton. We know about all the on the field highlights, record setting numbers and the Heisman Trophy win. As I said in my preview leading up to this game, I’ve never seen a player who was as important to his team as Cam Newton was this year.
But it’s one thing to be just a uniquely skilled player, and another to show the leadership and poise as a man like he did all year. Maybe Newton was humbled by the way he left Florida. Or by the 365 days he spent in Blinn, TX, a stop he repeatedly called “a business trip,” throughout this year. I don’t know. But regardless of what you think might have happened with his father, what I know is that I’ve never seen a single player handle as much adversity, with as much poise as Newton did this season.
And that’s what I’ll remember most about this Auburn team: Everything they had to overcome just to get to Monday night, let alone win the game. All the coaching changes, and late game deficits and NCAA investigations. Auburn wasn’t anyone’s preseason favorites, or magazine cover darlings. They were a team that everyone doubted from Day 1, that kept coming up with answers to the unrelenting questions. That was just their personality all year.
And now, they’re BCS National Champions.
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