January 17, 2011
2010 National Championship Game Result:
Michael Dyer, Nick Fairley and Wes Byrum Provide the Edge for Auburn to Beat Oregon, 22-19, for the 2010 BCS Title
Copyright © 2011 Ed Bagley
Two of the nation's most prolific scoring teams (a combined 88+ points per game) played a scoreless 1st quarter in their 2010 NCAA National Championship Game before engaging in a hard-nosed battle of wills. Wes Byrum's 19-yard field goal ended it on the last play, giving the #1-ranked Auburn Tigers a 22-19 victory over the #2-ranked Oregon Ducks.
While Oregon's defense was statistically better, it was Auburn's defense – led by Nick Fairley – that held the nation's rushing leader, LaMichael James, to only 49 yards. James averaged 152+ yards.
Fairly would end up becoming Defensive Player of the Game. The 6-foot-5, 314-pound junior defensive tackle had 3 tackles for a loss, a sack, and spent most of his time in Oregon's backfield.
The win gave Auburn its second national championship since its first in 1957, 53 years ago. Perhaps even more important, the Tiger victory marked the 5th consecutive year that a Southeastern Conference (SEC) team has won the title. Florida won in 2006 and 2008, LSU in 2007 and Alabama last year.
Everyone paying attention thought that if Auburn took the title, the Offensive Player of the Game would be its Heisman Trophy-winning star, Cam Newton. The Tigers had come from behind more than once during the season with outstanding play from Newton to notch their perfect 12-0 regular season record.
They would then beat South Carolina 56-17 in the SEC championship game.
What happened in the title game no one could have foreseen.
Auburn's freshman running back, Michael Dyer, would create the pivotal play of the day that would seal the deal for the Tigers.
A final drive by Oregon saw James score on a 2-yard shovel pass, and a 2-point conversion attempt by the Ducks worked when Jeff Maehl pulled it in to tie the score at 19-all with 2:33 remaining.
On Auburn's ensuing drive, Dyer took a handoff off right tackle for what appeared to be a 7-yard gain. Strong Safety Eddie Pleasant stopped him but Dyer's knee never hit the ground. He kept moving, stopped for a moment and, hearing some screams to keep running, took off again on what would become a 37-yard run at the then most important moment in the game.
The stop-and-go run by Dyer left me wondering why defensive tackle Zac Clark, the Oregon player next to the original stop, did not pile on, forcing Dyer to the ground. It was pretty apparent in the replay that had Dyer's knee touched the ground, and had Clark piled on, he may have been flagged for a late hit.
The instant replay showed that Dyer's knee never touched the turf. The referee never blew the play dead, and the official decision was Dyer was not down and the play continues. However, the official replay call was wrong, not right. Dyer's knee never touched the ground, but online replays clearly show that Dyer's wrist did touch the turf and – according to NCAA rules – he should have been declared down and the play over.
Three plays later, Dyer raced another 16 yards to Auburn's 1-yard line, setting up Wes Byrum's last-play, winning field goal as time expired. Michael Dyer would finish with 143 yards rushing on 22 carries (6.5 average per carry).
Cam Newton would add another 64 yards rushing. Dyer and Newton combined to generate 207 yards on the ground, 4 times LaMichael James' 49-yard rushing total.
Newton would go 20-for-34 passing (58%) for 265 yards and 2 touchdowns. Duck QB Darron Thomas got after it, going 27-for-40 (67%) for 363 yards and 2 touchdowns.
Newton did not have his best game and appeared injured at the end, but Dyer, Fairley, Byrum and the rest of the Tigers played well against arguably the best team in the country. Many pollsters had Oregon out front in the polls for most of the season.
Newton was Auburn's centerpiece, but there is no way Newton could have been part of the national championship game without a lot of help from his talented teammates.
Cam Newton and Nick Fairley, both juniors, have declared for the NFL draft. You would have to be close to brain dead to have an undefeated 14-0 season, win the national championship, and return to Auburn for your senior year. Just ask the Alabama players who returned for the Crimson Tide this year (Heisman Trophy-winner Mark Ingram) to try and make it two in-a-row.
Oregon receiver Jeff Maehl had a terrific game, catching 9 passes for 133 yards, including an 81-yard reception to set up the Ducks first touchdown, and the 2-point conversion that tied the game at the end.
While the Oregon community may protest, the fact of the matter is that the Ducks lost the battle at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, and consequently lost any rushing advantage they might have had.
As the game progressed, it became an issue of could Oregon strop Auburn from winning the game. In the end, the Ducks could not. That said, this year's BCS championship game was exciting to the last second, and certainly worthy of being one of the very best ever played.
We will never know who – if Wes Byrum's field goal had missed – would have won the game in overtime.
The Tigers would finish their season unbeaten at 14-0. Oregon ended at 12-1.
Auburn's victory made history in another way. The Tigers started the pre-season AP Poll farther back (at #22) than any team ever has that has gone on to win the national title since the poll expanded to 25 teams in 1989, 22 years ago. The previous lowest pre-season rank to climb to the top of the heap was the Oklahoma Sooners, who vaulted from #19 to the top in 2000.
Who Said That?
Famous Football Quotes by Knute Rockne,
the Great Notre Dame Coach
Copyright © 2008 Ed Bagley
College football's annual bowl season is full of surprises and spectacular
moments. Famous coaches have had some memorable remarks about American's most
popular sport, and here are some of them by legendary Notre Dame coach Knute
Rockne, who many consider to be the best of the best.
Knute Rockne's head coaching record in college football was second to none, and
his won-loss percentage is better than any other college or pro coach ever.
In 13 years with the Notre
Dame Fighting Irish, Rockne's regular season won-loss percentage was 90%
(105-12-5), his winning percentage among all games was 86%, and he led Notre
Dame to 6 national championships, winning titles in 1919 (9-0), 1920 (9-0), 1924
(10-0), 1927 (7-1-1), 1929 (9-0) and 1930 (10-0). Five of his 6 national
championships came from undefeated teams.
Along the way he coached the immortal George "Gipper" Gipp, whose multiple
skills lifted Notre Dame to national fame, and the "Four Horsemen" backfield of
Harry Stuhldreher, Don Miller, Jim Crowley and Elmer Layden that led the
Fighting Irish to a 28-2 record.
While covering a Notre Dame football game, sportswriter Grantland Rice penned
the famous opening story line—"Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the
Four Horsemen rode again"—that has become legend in sports history.
Rockne's influence on the game
of football was immense. He is credited with helping popularize the forward
pass, initiating intersectional rivalries, building a national schedule, and
instituting the "Rockne Shift", a backfield T formation that quickly shifted
into a box formation to the right or left as the ball was snapped.
Rockne was also the first coach to realize the market potential of football as
an entertainment medium and openly promoted Notre Dame football by courting the
media for free advertising so Notre Dame's football program would be financially
successful.
Knute Rockne was a Norwegian immigrant who graduated magna cum laude from Notre
Dame in 1914, played end for the Fighting Irish that defeated the highly-ranked
Army team for the first time in 1913, and was a graduate assistant in chemistry
before eventually becoming Notre Dame's head coach in 1918. A Protestant, he
converted to Catholicism later in life.
Following his undefeated, 6th national championship team in 1930, Rockne died at
age 43 as a passenger in a tragic Fokker airplane accident that would help
revolutionize the transportation business and lead to the all-metal Boeing 247
aircraft. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1951 as a
charter member.
Here are some of Knute
Rockne's best known quotes:
"Four years of football are calculated to breed in the average man more of the
ingredients of success in life than almost any academic course he takes."
"At home we're the hosts, and I never liked the idea of being embarrassed in
front of our friends."
"On the road we're somebody
else's guests – and we play in a way that they're not going to forget we visited
them."
"We count on winning. And if we lose, don't beef. And the best way to prevent
beefing is – don't lose."
"Let's win one for the Gipper."
"I've found that prayers work
best when you have big players."
"It isn't necessary to see a good tackle. You can hear it."
"One loss is good for the soul, too many losses is not good for the coach."
"Show me a good and gracious
loser and I'll show you a failure."
"Yes, I know that you feel you are not strong enough. That's what the enemy
thinks too. But we're gonna fool them."
"The secret is to work less as
individuals and more as a team. As a coach, I play not my eleven best, but my
best eleven."
"One man practicing sportsmanship is better than a hundred teaching it."
"Most men, when they think they are thinking, are merely rearranging their
prejudices."
Who Said That?
Famous Football Quotes by Vince
Lombardi, the Great Green Bay Packer Coach
Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley
College football's annual bowl season is full of surprises and spectacular
moments. Famous coaches have had some memorable remarks about American's most
popular sport, and here are some of them by legendary Green Bay Packer coach Vince Lombardi, who many consider to
be the best of the best.
Lombardi's head coaching record in the National Football League was second to
none. In 9 years with the Green Bay Packers, Lombardi's regular season won-loss
percentage was 73% (96-34-6), his postseason was 90% (9-1) and his total was 75%
(105-35-6).
He took a 1-10-1 team in 1958
to an NFL title in 3 years, and went on to win 5 NFL titles in 9 years (1961,
1962, 1965, 1966 and 1967) and three titles consecutively. He led the Packers to
the first two Super Bowl titles in 1966 and 1967.
Lombardi's discipline was legendary. A lifelong Catholic, he spent 4 years in
Cathedral Preparatory Seminary to become a Catholic priest before becoming a
standout football player at St. Francis Preparatory High School.
An undersized guard at 5 foot 8 and 185 pounds, he was offered and accepted a
football scholarship to Fordham University in the Bronx to play for "Sleepy" Jim
Crowley, one of the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame in the 1920s. He would become
part of the "Seven Blocks of Granite" that held Fordham's opponents scoreless
several times during a 25-game winning streak.
After coaching at Fordham,
Lombardi became the offensive line coach for West Point under another legendary
head coach, Colonel Red Blaik. Lombardi then became the offensive coordinator
for the New York Giants, working with defensive coordinator Tom Landry and head
coach Jim Lee Howell, before becoming Green Bay's head coach in 1959.
Lombardi was 59 years old when he died of cancer in 1970. Grown men and Hall of
Fame football players openly wept at his funeral.
Here are some of Vince
Lombardi's best known quotes:
"If it doesn't matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score?"
"I firmly believe than any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all
that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good
cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle—victorious."
"There is no room for second place. There is only one place in my game and that
is first place. I have finished second twice in my time at Green Bay and I never
want to finish second again."
"Winning isn't everything,
it's the only thing."
"Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence."
"The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender."
"Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser."
"Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit."
"If you can accept losing, you
can't win."
"Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch
excellence."
"Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect."
"Success demands singleness of purpose."
"It's not whether you get
knocked down, it's whether you get up."
"It's easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you're a winner,
when you're number one. What you got to have is faith and discipline when you're
not a winner."
"The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have."
"We didn't lose the game; we
just ran out of time."