No bowl game for national title stings No. 3 AU
Monday, December 06, 2004
By PHILLIP MARSHALL
Times Sports Staff pmarsh9485@msn.com No bowl game for national title stings No. 3 AU
AUBURN - Jason Campbell's words said he was disappointed. His eyes said he was angry.
Campbell, Auburn's fifth-year senior quarterback and soon-to-be Southeastern Conference Player of the Year, was still trying to accept Sunday night the reality that the Tigers will not play for the national championship in the Orange Bowl.
After going 12-0 for the first time in school history and winning their first SEC championship since 1989 with a 38-28 victory over Tennessee, they remained No. 3 Sunday in the polls and the final Bowl Championship Series standings. They will play No. 8 Virginia Tech (10-2) in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 3.
No. 1 USC and No. 2 Oklahoma will play in the Orange Bowl. They were ranked at the top of the preseason polls and were never unseated.
"We are SEC champs, and that's something to be proud of," Campbell said. "It just takes something out of you when you hear commentators say Auburn should just accept it and move on. That's not something you just accept. You work hard to get to this point, and you think about all the hard work you've done to get the opportunity to play in the Orange Bowl. Someone says just accept it. They really don't respect you much as a team. I'm not going to call any names, but it's something we've worked really hard for."
Though he didn't name him, Campbell was referring to comments by ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit.
Campbell said his teammates, particularly senior tailback Carnell Williams, were upset when the final word came Sunday afternoon.
"We earned where we are," Campbell said. "We feel like we should be respected. It wasn't something that was given to us. Everyone fought us off. If anyone thinks you are going to play the same team twice, play them in the SEC Championship Game, and walk all over them, they've got another thing coming. People were talking about Auburn better watch out because Tennessee has an opportunity to upset them. When you win the game, you still don't get respect. You get shot down for not winning convincingly enough."
Campbell said he believes Auburn, which started the season ranked No. 17, was never given an equal opportunity. He began to see the likely outcome when Auburn dropped in the BCS standings after beating Alabama 21-13 in Tuscaloosa.
"I feel like we always have to do something extra to push our team to the top," Campbell said. "Every time we play a game, somebody says we have to score so many points. I see some of those other teams struggle and nobody says anything. USC had a battle with UCLA, but people gave us trouble about Alabama. When you are playing a rivalry game, it's all about throwing the rankings out the window. We tried to tell everyone that, but they don't want to listen.
"We are honored to go to the Sugar Bowl, but it kind of hurts because we feel like the national championship was already pre-diagrammed from the beginning with the preseason rankings."
The Tigers had four wins over teams with nine or more wins, more than USC and Oklahoma combined. They trailed just twice all season and have won 14 consecutive games. They are the first unbeaten major conference team since the BCS was formed in 1998 to be left out of the national championship game.
This season is the first under the BCS in which more than two major conference teams have finished unbeaten.
Campbell said the Trojans and Sooners are also deserving, but he said Auburn was held to a different standard. The BCS system, he said, needs some work.
"Even if they did struggle to beat someone or had a tough game, no one really mentioned anything about it," Campbell said. "As soon as we struggled, everyone in the nation would know about it. Last year, Oklahoma lost the Big 12 championship and still got the opportunity to go. It's just something they are going to have to fix with the system, but it's something we can't control."
Auburn players got the bad news when they watched the BCS selection show on ABC. Senior safety Junior Rosegreen believed until the end the Tigers would be chosen.
"We just thought in our hearts that, beating three of the top 10 teams in the country, we felt we would have a shot to play for the national championship," Rosegreen said.
