The Bittersweet Smell of Success for Auburn

The Auburn Tigers are undefeated and unsatisfied.

The “We’re No. 1” chant from fans rang a bit hollow when it started almost perfunctorily in the minutes after the Tigers’ somewhat muted celebration of a 13-0 season.

Their 16-13 Sugar Bowl defeat of No. 9 Virginia Tech in front of 77,349 in the Louisiana Superdome ended with Auburn falling on the ball to preserve the victory by running out the clock after giving up an 80-yard touchdown play with 2:01 left in a game that was a shutout until the fourth quarter.

“Not having a chance to win the national championship is not a good feeling,” receiver Courtney Taylor said.

An undefeated season by a team from the Southeastern Conference usually ends with a national championship.

Instead, No. 3 Auburn will sit by as No. 1 USC and No. 2 Oklahoma play for the bowl championship series title in the Orange Bowl tonight, with the Tigers still clinging to the hope voters in the Associated Press poll will find some justification for voting them No. 1. (The USA Today/ESPN coaches’ poll is bound by contract to rank the winner of the BCS title game No. 1.)

“They’re playing a game tomorrow night,” Auburn Coach Tommy Tuberville said. “It’s probably going to be a good game. Neither team is better than us. We’ll play them any time, anywhere.”

If not for a missed 23-yard field goal by Virginia Tech’s Brandon Pace or a goal-line stand by Auburn that ended with Virginia Tech fullback Jesse Allen unable to handle a fourth-down pass that hit him in the chest, it might have been a different game.

Then again, the battle of two of the nation’s top three scoring defenses might have been a blowout if Auburn hadn’t had to settle for field goals three times in the first half after getting inside the 10-yard line.

“We just wanted to win by one, that’s all that counts,” Tuberville said. “If we’ve got to win by style points, we need to throw out all these systems and not worry about national champions, because it’s about winning a game.”

The what-ifs left by the BCS system will be talked about for much longer than the what-ifs of this game.

How Auburn might fare against USC or Oklahoma will be left to speculation and video-game simulators.

If USC wins, people might try to extrapolate from USC’s 24-13 victory over Virginia Tech in the first game of the season, even though USC led that long-ago game by only one point in the fourth quarter.

“It’s very close,” Virginia Tech Coach Frank Beamer said. “We played them both, and I’m sure Oklahoma’s right in there too. ... Yeah, I think they’re somewhere right there in the middle.”

Or people might look to the fact USC defeated Auburn each of the two previous seasons, though the argument is supposed to be about this season.

Auburn quarterback Jason Campbell, named the game’s most valuable player after completing 11 of 16 passes for 189 yards with one touchdown and one interception, made a plea for reporters’ votes after the game.

Safety Junior Rosegreen was beyond that.

“Anybody can say what they want to say, but we were the best team in the country. Write that down,” said Rosegreen, who is from the Miami area but did not want to be at home for tonight’s game.

“They should have had us down there,” he said. “It wouldn’t feel right being down there and knowing I should be playing.”

Auburn led at halftime, 9-0, after field goals of 23, 19 and 24 yards by John Vaughn.

The Tigers had to settle for field goals in part because of Virginia Tech’s defense -- third-down pressure on Campbell by defensive end Noland Burchette contributed to an overthrown pass and the run defense seemed to be at its best in goal-line situations -- but Auburn had offensive problems in the red zone as well.

Auburn finally scored the first touchdown of the game on the opening possession of the second half.

On third and 16, Campbell scrambled and threw off his back foot to Anthony Mix for a 53-yard gain to the 13.

This time, Auburn didn’t need the field-goal unit, with Campbell passing to Devin Aromashodu on third and two from the five-yard line.

With a 16-0 lead, Auburn looked as if it was ready to put the pedal down for the sort of convincing rout that might sway voters.

Virginia Tech (10-3) seemed almost incapable of mounting a comeback after Pace’s missed field-goal attempt.

But two turnovers -- an interception by Virginia Tech’s Jimmy Williams and a fumble by Auburn’s Carnell Williams recovered by the Hokies -- started to diminish the impressiveness of Auburn’s performance.

Virginia Tech took advantage, with Josh Morgan scoring on a third-down play from the 29 after he caught a pass and cut to the sideline, leaving two would-be tacklers looking at his back.

The score was 16-6 with 6:58 left in the game after the Hokies attempted a two-point conversion that failed when Bryan Randall’s pass hit the ground in front of receiver Richard Johnson in the end zone.

Morgan scored the Hokies’ final touchdown too, on the first play of a possession that began at their 20 with 2:13 remaining.

“It was an in-and-up, and the defensive back bit,” Morgan said. “When I got the ball, there were no Auburn players around.”

Auburn became only the 10th team in NCAA Division I-A history to finish 13-0 or better.

The Tigers won a national championship in 1957 with a 10-0 record. In 1993, Auburn went 11-0 but was on NCAA probation and was banned from appearing in a bowl game.

This time, to the Auburn players, it feels as if there is no explanation.

“I just feel like nobody can take nothing away, because we were 13-0 in the SEC and they’d be crazy not to give us a split of that national championship,” Rosegreen said.

“If they don’t do it, in our hearts we’re still champions.”