With the high-speed Oregon Ducks and high-octane Auburn Tigers involved, regardless of who most folks picked to win the 2011 BCS National Championship Game, the majority concluded that it'd be a high-scoring affair. That was for good reason: Oregon had averaged 49 points through 12 games, and the Tigers had averaged 43 points. But the championship ended up with a bruising 22-19 Auburn victory, marking each team's second lowest scoring total of the season.
BCS National Championship Game: Offense Abandons Oregon On Biggest Stage
SB Nation Ducks blog Addicted to Quack wonders what happened to the vaunted Oregon offense.
Oregon was stopped on multiple goal line stands, and the Ducks fell after they couldn't bring down Michael Dyer late, and the Auburn Tigers used a last second field goal to beat the Ducks.
I don't even know what to say. The Oregon defense did what they needed to do, for the most part, but the Ducks couldn't score for most of the game, and they lost not because of their defense, but because of their offense.
If not for Auburn’s tough goalline stands, the score would have ended up higher. Oregon’s play calling on some of those plays has been called into question, and nods to the possibility the Ducks were too inexperienced in this type of brutish game to close the deal. Oregon certainly thrived in open-field, up-and-down games this season; once a team with matching athleticism lined up across the green, though, the attack buckled.
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