BCS National Championship Game: A Look Back at the Most Memorable Moments

After Monday Night’s BCS National Championship Game between the Auburn Tigers and the Florida State Seminoles, there will be no more. There will have been a total of 16 Championship Games when the game ends. Let’s look back at some memorable moments of BCS Championship Games past.

1. For me the most memorable was the 2002 game between the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Miami Hurricanes. Miami led the Buckeyes by seven after scoring a touchdown and PAT on their possession leaving it up to OSU to match them to force a second OT. On fourth down, the Buckeyes were stopped on a pass break up in the end zone. Game over. Miami players celebrate. But, wait a flag comes out. What? A referee who wasn’t even closest to the play throws a flag. First down Buckeyes. My question is what was the statute of limitations after the game is over that a ref can throw a flag and declare the game is still on? Can he wait five minutes? Ten Minutes? a half hour? A week? At what point after a ref signals incomplete is it safe for a team to rush the field? Should they do the How I Met Your Mother “Wait for it…” ? Is that long enough? OK we’re good now? Nobody ever answered that question that I can recall.

Of course the Buckeyes went on to score and tie the game and of course they won it in the second overtime to win the national championship and stop Miami from winning back to back titles.

2. Memorable moment #2 was Ted Ginn of the Buckeyes running back the opening kickoff back for a touchdown against the Florida Gators in the Championship Game of 2006. What made that one memorable to me is that I am a Gators fan and that was the first and last time that night Ohio State fans had reason to cheer. That game was my favorite of all of them for obvious reasons. My teams won. And nobody thought they would, especially after that first play.

3. Number three on the list was in the 2005 game when the Texas Longhorns won over the USC Trojans on the strength of Vince Young. He ran all over USC and he threw on them too. Then he scored the winning touchdown in the finals seconds. That was also a team not many thought would win going into the game.

4. Tim Tebow capped off his Championship by throwing his patented jump pass to David Nelson. Tebow should have won the 2008 Heisman Trophy and he proved it by beating the guy who did, Sam Bradford of the Oklahoma Sooners in a head to head match-up.

5. In the 2009 Championship Game, Colt McCoy of the Longhorns went down early in the game with his team moving the ball on the #1 Alabama Crimson Tide. We’ll never know how that game would have turned out had he not gotten hurt. We do know that freshman Garrett Gilbert had them in striking distance well into the fourth quarter. The sight of McCoy trying to throw the ball when he had no feeling in his right arm or hand was both admirable and sad.

The BCS was also made up of other big bowl games that had nothing to do with deciding the national championship. But some of these games produced some fantastic moments. Here are a few:

1. Watching the Boise State Broncos pull several late trick plays including a game winning Statue of Liberty Play to beat the mighty Sooners in the Fiesta Bowl of 2006 has to be one of the great moments of any sport. That is one of those games you’d like to pop in the DVD player to watch with a young person who was not around then. And then when the player that scored on the play went over and proposed on one knee to a BSU cheerleader? When does that movie get made?

2. This season the UCF Knights, who were the team that was on the losing end of the “35 confidence points” game on the ESPN Bowl Pickem Show” in 2013, which means of the 70 bowl teams they were the ones that the so-called experts like Todd McShay and Robert Smith felt were the least likely to win, beat the Baylor Bears 52-42. Gotta love it when pinheads like McShay end up with egg on their faces. You also gotta love when that same pinhead puts the winning quarterback, Blake Bortles, as the #3 pick in the upcoming draft. Really Todd? Where was he before he made you look like an idiot?

3. Andrew Luck and the Stanford Cardinal took on Brandon Weeden and the Oklahoma State Cowboys at the Fiesta Bowl in 2011. This game was very close to being the National Championship Game and if it would have been, it would have been a lot better than the one we actually got between the LSU Tigers and Alabama Crimson Tide. The Fiesta Bowl was won by the Cowboys in overtime of a high scoring affair. Had it been for all the marbles it would be up there with the Miami-Ohio State game.