Football games are so rarely what you expect them to be. This was the thought as Auburn's Cam Newton lined up for a play with 10 seconds left and the Tigers tied with Oregon at the odd score of 19-19. This game had been nothing at all like we thought, but maybe we should have known that. This is the nature of football. This is the nature of matchups. Football games are almost never what you think.

On a Monday night in the desert, in the BCS Championship Game, you had two of the highest scoring offenses in America. You had, for the first time in this game, two defenses that did not rank in the top 20. You had a team, Oregon, that played so fast that teams seemingly faked injuries just to get a breather. And you had a team, Auburn, led by a Heisman winning quarterback who had perhaps the greatest statistical season in the history of college football.

Yes, in so many ways, Monday night's game was about Cam Newton. But you already knew that. He was the best player. He was the controversial figure. He was the guy fans made signs about, the guy who trended worldwide on Twitter. He was the unstoppable force. He was the one guy Oregon was going to do everything to stop, even it if meant sending defenders in from all angles, even if it meant letting Auburn receivers run free. The Ducks did all that and more. And they largely did what they had hoped to do. By the time the Newton lined up for the play, his back was throbbing, his head was spinning. He had his good moments, sure, but he seemed strangely off the whole game. The score was 19-all, and Newton lined up over center and...

... but we're getting ahead of ourselves. The game was nothing at all like the statistics suggested. Neither team scored in the first quarter. Maybe that was rust, the corrosion that sets in when teams have five weeks between their last games of the season and their bowl game. There were three interceptions thrown in the first 10 minutes. Auburn managed just 21 yards of offense.

The seco...