The Clemson Tigers beat the Ohio State Buckeyes 40-35, to make it 4 in a row for the underdogs in the 2014 Bowl Championship Series (BCS) games. The National Championship game between Florida State and Auburn is the last ever BCS game, on Monday night. This Orange Bowl game wasn’t decided until Ohio State quarterback Braxton Miller’s 2nd interception, with 1:18 remaining.
In a battle of teams dominated by their experienced quarterbacks, Clemson’s Tajh Boyd outplayed Miller. Boyd threw for 370 yards and 5 touchdown passes. He also ran for 127 yards and a touchdown. Miller passed for 234 yards and 2 touchdowns, and rushed for 35 yards and 2 touchdowns. But Miller doesn’t have Sammy Watkins at wide receiver like Boyd does. Watkins finished the game with 16 catches for 227 yards and 2 touchdowns.
In the Sugar Bowl on Thursday night, the Oklahoma Sooners shocked the Alabama Crimson Tide 45-31. Oklahoma, who was a 16-point underdog, gave up an early touchdown, then proceeded to score on their next 5 possessions, to take a 31-17 lead into halftime. Alabama came into the game the best scoring defense in the nation, giving up just over 11 points per game. 3 turnovers by the Tide helped the Sooners score 31 in the first 2 quarters, but that doesn’t really tell the story.
Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops, who was critical of the Southeastern Conference (SEC) earlier in the year, decided to start freshman Trevor Knight against Alabama. This was Knight’s 5th start of the season, and he had career highs in passing yardage and touchdown passes, by halftime. He finished the game with 348 yards and 4 touchdown passes.
Alabama rushed for more yardage in the game (129-81), and also passed for more yardage (387-348), but ended with 5 turnovers, compared with only one for Oklahoma. The Sooners took a bit of a breather in the 3rd quarter, but came back strong in the 4th, after the Tide closed the scoring gap to 31-24. The teams exchanged touchdown passes in the final quarter, and Alabama had one more chance to tie the game with 56 seconds remaining.
On their first play of this short drive, Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron was sacked by Eric Striker, who also forced a fumble, which was picked up by Geneo Grissom, and returned for an 8-yard touchdown, that basically ended the game. Oklahoma had 7 sacks in the game, while the Tide only allowed 10 sacks in their previous 12 games.
Alabama which lost their chance to play for their 3rd consecutive national championship, after losing to Auburn, on a missed field goal returned for a touchdown, has now given up 79 points in back to back losses. It looks like the mighty Tide defense has developed a severe flaw.
With Michigan State beating Stanford in the Rose Bowl, and Central Florida’s stunning victory over Baylor, the underdogs are now 4-0 in the BCS bowl games in 2014. Auburn hopes it’s a clean sweep for the dogs on Monday. Florida State is favored by 13 points in the BCS National Championship Game.
There was another big bowl game Friday night, although not a BCS bowl game. The Cotton Bowl pitted the Missouri Tigers against the Oklahoma State Cowboys. Missouri won the game 41-31, in just another bowl game with over 1000 yards of total offense. I’m almost shocked when a defense makes a good play anymore. But when the Cowboys had the ball trailing 34-31 with just over a minute remaining in the game, their quarterback Clint Chelf was sacked and fumbled, and Missouri’s Shane Ray returned it 73 yards for the final points.
Missouri was fortunate to have such a good running game, rushing for 256 yards, because their starting quarterback James Franklin struggled mightily. He was 15 of 40 passing for 174 yards, and one interception, with no touchdown passes. He also had 36 yards rushing on 16 carries, which is a miserable 2.3 yards per carry.
By contrast, Missouri backup quarterback Maty Mauck was given one set of downs, and it resulted in the Tigers scoring on a touchdown pass from Mauck to Marcus Lucas. He also rushed for 73 yards on 3 carries. He must have played more than just that set of downs because 73 yards rushing plus 32 yards passing is much longer than that 80 yard drive. But I was flipping back and forth between the Orange and Cotton Bowls, and didn’t see him in the game again.
The reason I bring this up, is that Clemson eventually took the lead in the 4th quarter, and I kept wondering when Missouri would put Mauck back in the game. This seemed like an easy decision to switch quarterbacks, but they never made the change. It did eventually work out for them, but not because they stuck with Franklin. Head coach Gary Pinkel would have definitely had to answer for this decision if they ended up losing this game.
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