Early Thursday morning, the final college football polls were released after the Auburn Tigers 22-19 win over the Oregon Ducks. Despite losing to unranked Iowa in the Insight Bowl, the Missouri Tigers only dropped four spots in the AP and Coaches Top 25 poll.
Mizzou fell from 14th to 18th in both polls. If there is any consolation to losing out to Nebraska in the Big 12 North, it is the fact that the Tigers finished a spot ahead of the Huskers in the AP Poll and two in the Coaches’.
Here are some final thoughts on the national championship game. No matter how awful looking the uniforms are (see yellow highlighter socks from Oregon) or how flashy the offense is, football still comes down to two key stats. Rushing yards and turnovers. Auburn and Oregon each turned the ball over twice, including a Cam Newton fumble leading to Oregon’s final score, but it was an interception in the red zone in the first half that kept the Ducks off the board.
There was a lot of talk that the Ducks would tire out Auburn with their frantic pace offense, yet Auburn held true to football philsophies, stop the run, you’ll win the game. Oregon managed just 75 yards rushing compared to 254 for the Tigers.
Other observations: First, I think college football fans deserve better games. Even though the game was close and was decided at the end, I thought we could have seen cleaner football, especially in the first half, but after a layoff of 34 days it took awhile for both teams to not only settle down, but find their rhythm.
It’s a shame that the biggest football game of the year had to be played on newly laid sod. How many times do we have to watch players slipping and sliding because of poor footing…in an indoor stadium?
Six of the last eight national champions have come from the SEC and the last two from the state of Alabama. Say what you want, but right now the southeast of the United States has the best football in the country.
