Oregon and Auburn Both Stage Second-Half Comebacks to Stay Unscathed

It must have been a vastly different atmosphere in the locker rooms of college football’s two top-ranked teams, Oregon and Auburn, during their respective contests today.

The Tigers of Auburn went into the visiting locker room of Bryant-Denny Stadium at half-time this afternoon in disarray, completely shell-shocked, down 24-7 after getting blitzkrieged by Alabama in front of 100,000 screaming, raucous Crimson Tide fans.

It seemed the Tigers were down three scores before they even had a chance to get done stretching.

The Oregon Ducks, on the other hand, didn’t need to go into panic mode like Auburn at the intermission of their tussle with Pac-10 foe Arizona up in Eugene.

Only down five points after a wet, sluggish first half of football, head coach Chip Kelly displayed an uncanny array of confidence during his mid-game chat with sideline reporter Holly Rowe.

Few words needed to be spoken by Kelly. The message: we’re confident, we’re fine, we’ll get the job done. That’s that.

And get the job done they did.

Oregon, the No. 1 ranked team in all the land, came out in the second half and did what they do best: they methodically lit up the scoreboard to the tune of 34 second-half points to take down an Arizona Wildcats team that looked up for the challenge, but in the end just didn’t have enough bullets to survive the duel.

Maybe the Ducks learned a thing or two about second-half statements from Auburn, who in one of the most exciting games of the season, rallied behind the play of sensational superstar quarterback Cam Newton to stun Alabama 28-27 and remain perfect on the season.

Newton, the clear frontrunner for the Heisman Trophy coming into the weekend, might have put the stamp on on his campaign for the award with the amazing comeback today.

The junior quarterback, who was accountable for all four of his team’s touchdowns, literally and figuratively quieted his critics with his performance then with his victory lap around the stadium after the game, his hand placed firmly over his mouth just for good measure as if to say: yeah, you can all shut up now, I’m the best thing out there in college football.

When their backs were against the wall, each of these two teams did what they had to do, what they were taught to do, what they needed to do - stay calm, remember the plan and execute.

In the end, the BCS held off a firestorm by having its two big boys survive to fight another day as we now head into the the final weekend of the season.

Oregon State and South Carolina are all that stand in the way of the National Championship game that all the BCS big boys would love to stage - Oregon vs. Auburn, the two best teams from two power conferences.

It would be a wild show for sure, a showdown in the Arizona desert that would have every college football fan salivating with intrigue.

The South vs. the West Coast. Two different regions, two different brands of football, two fan bases that could each do a good deal of jabbering during the weeks leading up to the National Title game on Jan. 10.

The battle lines haven’t been drawn just quite yet, but the sketches are in the works.