Editor's Note: On this date 10 years ago, Auburn made history. The Tigers completed their undefeated season with a 22-19 victory over Oregon in Glendale, Arizona, to win the second national championship in program history and first since 1957.
It was supposed to be a shootout. A BCS national championship game pitting Cam Newton and the most prolific offense in Auburn history against a fast-paced, up-tempo Oregon offense that was putting up nearly 50 points a game. "The Shootout in the Desert," they called it.
But somebody forgot to relay the message to the Auburn defense.
"Everybody thought it was going to be this high-scoring game, and I remember our seniors saying, 'Nah, they're not going to do that on us,'" Auburn defensive lineman Nosa Eguae said. "They had some ballers – LaMichael James and all those guys. But we knew we had a better team, better players, and we could dominate them on the defensive line."
"They already knew we were coming from the SEC, and we were coming to hit them in the mouth," added running back Onterrio McCalebb. "Our defense was coming to smash them."
On Oregon's first three drives, the Auburn defense forced a 3-and-out and then got back-to-back interceptions from Demond Washington and Zac Etheridge. The Tigers tacked on a safety in the second quarter and made a game-changing stop on fourth-and-1 late in the third quarter to preserve a 19-11 lead.
"The reality is this wasn't a game like Arkansas where we'd be able to go up and down the field offensively. We couldn't do it," Auburn head coach Gene Chizik said. "So we had to win that game with defense that night, and the defense came through."
But when Oregon tied the game late, Chizik also knew his offense would respond. With 2:33 left, they were more than capable of putting together a game-winning drive because they had done it time and time again throughout that season.
Sure enough, the Tigers picked up 52 yards on the first two plays – a big chunk coming from Michael Dyer's famous 37-yard run – and marched all the way down to the Oregon 1-yard line to set up a chip shot for Wes Byrum to win the game. The kick sailed through the uprights as time expired, and the confetti immediately started falling from the sky.
When the team returned to Auburn, the confetti was replaced with toilet paper as the Auburn Family celebrated the national championship by rolling Toomer's Corner.
"When we got back home and had the celebration, I started seeing how many of my friends and people in Auburn who had actually made it out to that game and spent the money to go out there and get a ticket," offensive lineman Lee Ziemba said. "That's when you kind of realized how special it was for everybody and for the Auburn Family.
"What a blessing to be a part of something like that. Unbelievable."
Impact Player: Nick Fairley
Auburn had the best offensive player in the country that season in Cam Newton, but the Tigers also had the best defensive player with Nick Fairley. The Lombardi Award winner led the charge for the Auburn defense with another dominant performance.
Early in the second quarter with Oregon threatening to score, Fairley brought down quarterback Darron Thomas for a 6-yard loss on third down to force a field goal. Later, it was Fairley who got the initial surge on the goal-line stand, allowing teammate Josh Bynes to come through and make the tackle. He also made the tackle on the play before.
Fairley finished with five tackles, three tackles for loss, a sack and a forced fumble and was named the Defensive Player of the Game.
"Our defense, we showed America everything we've done each and every Saturday out there on the field," Fairley said after the game. "We just went unnoticed throughout the year. Now that we got noticed out here on the big stand, we just showed what we can do."
Play of the Game: 'He never went down.'
The game-winning field goal from Byrum will forever live in Auburn lore, but it was Michael Dyer's 37-yard run – where just about everybody in the stadium thought he was down – that put the Tigers in a position to kick the field goal and win the game.
With just over two minutes left, Dyer took the handoff from his own 40 and was spun down for what looked like six yards. But Dyer's knee never touched the ground.
"I just remember our players and coaches yelling, 'Run, run,' because even Michael wasn't sure he wasn't down," Chizik said. "He kind of popped up, he heard the players and a couple of the assistant coaches yelling to run, and he just took back off."
Dyer took off running down the Auburn sideline, and with Darvin Adams out in front blocking for him, he carried it deep inside Oregon territory to the 23-yard line.
"Once that happened, I think we kind of knew that Wes had it in the bag because of just who Wes is," Ziemba said. "The guy is cool, calm and collected no matter what situation he's ever in. So we knew he had it in the bag then. It was just up to us to block for it."
Dyer earned Offensive Player of the Game honors after rushing for 143 yards on 22 carries.
Key Stat: 75 rushing yards
Auburn came into the national championship game leading the SEC with 287.2 rushing yards per game. The Tigers were on pace to be the league's best rushing offense in the last 25 years. And yet, they still trailed Oregon who came in averaging 303.8 rushing yards per game.
That's what makes the performance from the Auburn defense that much more impressive. They held a team averaging more than 300 yards per game to just 75 yards on the ground. Oregon was averaging 6.1 yards per carry through the first 12 games that season. Against the Tigers, they rushed for just 2.3 yards per carry.
LaMichael James, the Doak Walker Award winner, ran for 1,682 yards and 21 touchdowns in the first 12 games. In the BCS title game, James rushed for 49 yards and no touchdowns.
Fairley was the game's Defensive MVP, but it was a group effort. Mike McNeil had a team-high 14 tackles. Demond Washington had seven tackles, a tackle for loss and an interception. Nine different Auburn players recorded a tackle for loss against the Ducks.
In Their Own Words
"It is really hard for me to describe the feeling that I have for the Auburn family. I look down here to my left and I see three guys along with a locker room of 100 more that have just defied all the odds. I'm not sure if 15 weeks ago anyone believed that we could do this except us. This is the most unbelievable group of young men I have been around. We said that we wanted to go from good to great, and I can sit here and tell you that the Auburn Tigers are the best football team in the United States tonight." – Gene Chizik
"Anything is possible. I guarantee you five or six months ago, nobody would have bet their last dollar to say that Auburn University is winning the national championship. And now, on January 10, 2011, we're smiling right now." – Cam Newton
"It was one of those surreal moments where I think if you're in it, you just can't fully appreciate it. But now, 10 years later, you look back on it and you just know it was a complete blessing. More than that, I think we were all destined for it. Everything just happened to work out in our favor that year because we were meant to win the championship, we were meant to have the season that we did, and we were meant to do it for the Auburn Family." – Nosa Eguae
