Auburn hopes to share title
NEW ORLEANS – Auburn has come too far to give up hope.
So, on the eve of tonight’s Sugar Bowl, coach Tommy Tuberville made a familiar pitch: The third-ranked Tigers deserve at least a share of the national title if they beat No. 9 Virginia Tech.
“There are two national championship games,” Tuberville said. “There’s one here at the Sugar Bowl, and there’s another one at the Orange Bowl.”
Never mind that it’s No. 1 Southern Cal vs. No. 2 Oklahoma in the Orange – and the winner of Tuesday night’s game is assured of being voted BCS champion in the coaches’ poll.
Auburn’s hopes are based on an unlikely scenario: The Tigers rout Virginia Tech, Oklahoma beats USC in an ugly game and enough writers in the AP media poll opt to put Auburn ahead of the Sooners.
This being college football – where champions are decided by human opinion and computer-generated rankings – the Tigers sounded like a candidate in the waning days of a political campaign: “Vote Auburn! This team earned your support by going 12-0 in the Southeastern Conference, including two victories over Cotton Bowl winner Tennessee. Surely an impressive performance against the Hokies – who opened the season with a hard-fought loss to Southern Cal – would be enough to sway at least some of the pollsters.”
Overlooked in this whole process is Virginia Tech (10-2).
The Hokies have heard all the talk about poor ol’ Auburn. But a Virginia Tech victory would vindicate the Bowl Championship Series and allow the Orange Bowl to be played without a shred of controversy.
“Nobody’s really giving us a chance,” defensive end Noland Burchette said. “Nobody really expected us to do anything this year. Every commentator, every news reporter I see, they think it’s going to be a blowout. We’ll see.”
Not that anyone on the Auburn side has done anything to denigrate the Hokies. If anything, the Tigers have gone out of their way portray Virginia Tech as being just as good as those teams that made it to Miami.
“They probably should have beaten USC,” Auburn center Jeremy Ingle said. “If not for some phantom interference call” – a disputed penalty against the Hokies – “they’d probably be undefeated right now. Then, we’d all be talking about us, Virginia Tech and Oklahoma.”
The Hokies’ other loss, 17-16 to North Carolina State, would have gone the other way if Brandon Pace’s 43-yard field goal attempt on the final play had been a couple of feet to the left.
Some players don’t even plan to watch the Orange Bowl, others wish they could attend the game.
“What do those teams have that we don’t have?” Auburn linebacker Travis Williams asked. “I would like to see firsthand why people think they’re better than we are.”