College football Championship Saturday: Florida State, Auburn to Pasadena

Last Week: 19-for-32, 330 passing yards, three TDs, two INTs; 59 rushing yards, one TD; defeated Duke, 45-7

2013 Season: 237-for-349, 3,820 passing yards, 38 TDs, 10 INTs; 193 rushing yards, four TDs

Jameis Winston is going to win the 2013 Heisman Trophy. This doesn’t need any qualifiers, or any “if ... then” hypotheticals: Florida State’s quarterback has had the potential criminal charges against him fall away, and thus the moral hazard of voting for him is diminished. And his competition for the award has fallen off.

Winston was typically great against Duke on Saturday, too, carving up the Blue Devils in primetime after starting the game 1-for-5. He put up almost exactly the same stat line as a thrower against Duke that he did against Florida (19-for-31, 327 yards, three TDs, one INT), and added 59 yards and a score on the ground. FSU controlled that game from the second quarter onward, despite Winston’s two picks.

Bowling Green’s reported athletics surplus last year. That number was produced in part by the million-or-so payout all MAC members received for NIU’s 2013 Orange Bowl appearance. Without it, BGSU barely would have broken even.

Oh yeah, and thanks in part to the big win, BGSU just lost its head coach to Wake Forest.

• Interactive bowl season calendar with picks and links to more coverage:

• What the Playoff would look like, from four to 32 teams

Click here for our big, pretty, interactive bowl calendar, with our picks for each game. The regular, boring version is below.

In the lower-tier games, you have two Louisiana teams -- UL Lafayette and Tulane -- playing in what should be a fun New Orleans Bowl to kick things off.

Update: The last-ever BCS standings are now live. Via the National Football Foundation:

Just about a month ago, college football fans were concerned that we could see four undefeated teams with a legitimate claim to the national title, one year before the four-team playoff was implemented. Alas, Baylor and Alabama fell in the regular season, setting up an easy-to-stomach (for all but SEC fans) title game between the two remaining power conference undefeateds -- Florida State and Ohio State.

There was a long time this season where it looked like Ohio State could win 25 straight games and not get a single shot at the national title. Alabama looked unbeatable -- even Baylor looked keen to jump the Buckeyes -- and Ohio State had to continually go out there and beat down its conference competition (simultaneously feeding in to the notion that their conference competition wasn’t all that good in the first place).

Alabama and Baylor fell in the regular season, leaving Ohio State with one task -- defeat Michigan State in the Big Ten Championship Game, and head to Pasadena to face Florida State in the last-ever BCS National Title Game. The Buckeyes pulled out in front but were unable to close, falling to the Spartans 34-24 Saturday night.

When Texas fell to 1-2 with a home loss to Ole Miss, Mack Brown told reporters that his program had a chance to “get all this righted by winning the Big 12.” We chuckled at the idea. The thought of a team that had given up a program-record 550 rushing yards to BYU and fired its defensive coordinator pulling it together for a conference title run seemed preposterous.

Twelve weeks later, when the final gun sounded in Stillwater, Mack Brown and his Longhorns suddenly had precisely that opportunity. Oklahoma State’s loss to Oklahoma left Texas tied with Baylor atop the conference standings and made Saturday’s game between the Longhorns and Bears the de facto Big 12 Championship Game. Texas would have a hard time forcing its coach out after a conference championship and Fiesta Bowl berth. One win stood between Brown and salvation.

Auburn didn’t know it at the time, but all they needed to do Saturday was beat Missouri to clinch their place in the national title game. They did just that, emerging as the Top Tiger in a 59-42 shootout in the SEC Championship Game Saturday afternoon.

College and Magnolia said Mason’s tremendous performance was reflective of his entire season, and argued the running back merits serious Heisman consideration.

Florida State and Auburn will meet on Jan. 6 to determine the winner of the BCS National Championship. The Seminoles appeared Pasadena-bound since early in the season, while Auburn snuck in the back door with late-season wins over Alabama and Missouri, benefiting from Ohio State’s loss to Michigan State.

Update: Via SB Nation odds partner OddsShark, the line’s moving in the Noles’ favor already:

With no national championship on the line, this game isn’t for all the Tostitos, but with a huge payout and BCS prestige, it’s definitely worth at least a few Tostitos.

Date and time: Jan. 1, 2014, 8:30 p.m. ET

Say goodbye to the BCS Championship Game -- this year marks the last one of its kind, before college football switches to a four-team playoff system next season. In a way, it is quite fitting that the BCS is laid to rest at the Rose Bowl, home of the oldest bowl in college football.

There are, of course, no conference affiliations for this one -- the top two teams in the BCS standings will play, although the SEC has won seven consecutive titles, and nine overall. The other conferences have six between them.

Hey, buddy. Tough break losing your national title berth and your undefeated season on Saturday night. How’s ... how are things goin’? How ya doin’? Hangin’ in there?

Aw, buddy. You ... It ... it’ll be okay.

INDIANAPOLIS -- It was repeated enough to seem like it was the usual, pre-installed coach speak.

Elaboration will surely follow in the coming days, but before Ohio State could process their elimination from perfection and a national title, the stunning result of Saturday just... sucked.

No. 12 vs. unranked. If Florida State and Auburn played in Week 1, that would have been the rankings matchup. Instead, the Seminoles and Tigers will meet as Nos. 1 and 2 in the BCS National Championship Game. Florida State handled Duke, 45-7, in the ACC title game, and Auburn outlasted Missouri, 59-42, in the battle for SEC supremacy. The two will meet Jan. 6, 2014, in Pasadena, Calif., to determine this season’s national champ.

Florida State was always going to advance to the championship game with a win, but Auburn needed some help. The Tigers got that in the form of a 34-24 Michigan State upset over No. 2 Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship Game. The Spartans clinched their trip to the Rose Bowl, and the Buckeyes lost out on a shot at their first national title since 2007. Now, they’ll likely play in another BCS game as an at-large team, but the stakes won’t be nearly as high. OSU had won 24 consecutive games and completed two straight unbeaten regular seasons, but a poor start and finish against MSU put a major dent in its fine season.

It’s Championship Saturday, everyone. After this, it’s just Army-Navy and the bowls. We miss you already, regular season. We miss you so damn much.

Michigan State blew a 17-0 lead and trailed Ohio State 24-17 in the third quarter, but Sparty fought back to take the lead. Jeremy Langford’s 26-yard touchdown run in the final minutes sealed the upset victory for Michigan State, eliminating the Buckeyes from the BCS Championship race.

The 2013 BCS Selection Show will air on ESPN, starting at 8:30 p.m. ET Sunday night. The final BCS standings will also be revealed. The pairings for the Orange, Sugar, Rose and Fiesta bowls will be unveiled along with the two teams playing in the National Championship Game.

We will know most of the bowl season matchups before the show starts, and we already know which schools have locked up automatic bids, leaving the show to fill in any blanks that remain. Here’s the schedule as it stands:

It ended up being a bit too close for comfort, but No. 23 Fresno State did emerge victorious in the first ever Mountain West Conference championship game, winning 24-17 over Utah State.

Fresno State’s offense got off to a bit of a slow start, but eventually woke up to take an early 17-0 lead, thanks to a Colin McGuire 30-yard field goal and two touchdown passes by Derek Carr. The senior quarterback was briefly xamined for a shoulder injury in the second quarter, but that was about it as far as his troubles went in the first half -- he threw for 324 yards on 24-of-32 passing in those 30 minutes alone.

So, we knew that after Michigan State beat Michigan, Mark Dantonio -- who has never been happy on camera in his entire life -- got down to the Rich Homie Quan song “Type of Way” in the Michigan State locker room. We knew that, and had watched the video dozens, perhaps trillions of times.

However, we thought Dantonio was just sucked into the moment, a coach amongst some rambunctious young adults throwing his body in strange directions because he thought they’d appreciate it.

The first eight teams had a bye last week, but every team remaining was in action Saturday. The second round featured several blowouts, with margins of 41, 31 and 24 points. It also may have included the final game for Craig Bohl at North Dakota State.

Furman went up against the No. 1 seeded North Dakota State Bison and were run all over. Coming off the bye, the undefeated Bison ran for 267 yards behind starting quarterback Brock Jensen and running back Sam Ojuri. Jensen completed 15-of-25 passes ball for 249 yards. He threw for two touchdowns and ran for another long one, a 52-yard sprint that contributed to his game-high 86 yards rushing. North Dakota State will face Coastal Carolina in the third round, on their quest for a third consecutive title.

There may be no experience in all of sports like watching Michigan State squeeze the life out of an offensive powerhouse like Ohio State. The Spartans defied the narrative Saturday afternoon, falling behind to the Buckeyes before coming back to win a dramatic Big Ten Championship game, 34-24, in Indianapolis.

Miller and Ohio State continued their strong offensive play in the third quarter, as Miller capped off a good drive with his eight-yard touchdown run, tying the game at 17-17 and putting the quarterback at over 100 yards on the ground.

Duke entered the ACC Championship as four-touchdown underdogs against Florida State, but the Blue Devils did not look intimidated at all in the early going. Duke held FSU scoreless through the first quarter but could not capitalize on early Seminole turnovers and advantageous field position, and that’s not something you can afford to do against the No. 1 team in the country.

The Seminoles’ offense eventually woke up and posted a 17-point second quarter, and the game was never seriously in doubt after halftime in Florida State’s 45-7 win. The victory secures FSU’s spot in the BCS National Championship against either Ohio State or Auburn.

After a winning their second straight Pac-12 title -- this one over Arizona State -- Stanford is starting to become mighty familiar with the Rose Bowl.

Unfortunately, Foster suffered a knee injury on the first play of the third quarter, and though he came back in for one play on the next drive, it would eventually result in an early end to his night.

After their Pac-12 Championship win over Arizona State on Saturday, 11-2 Stanford has won the conference for the second year in a row and will play in the Rose Bowl. The Cardinal will likely draw No. 10 Michigan State, but the official pairing will be announced Sunday.

The game will be held in Pasadena on New Year’s Day, and the Cardinal will face an opponent from the Big Ten. Michigan State is playing Ohio State in the Big Ten title game at the moment, but no matter the result, it appears the Spartans will end up in the Rose Bowl.

Here’s the Mumphrey touchdown, for your viewing pleasure.

Cook finished the half 11-of-17 for 182 yards and two scores -- more yardage than five of his regular season games.