Best player in BCS title game doesn’t go by Jameis – and wasn’t on the winning team

Seemed like most of the college football season, we were told Boston College’s Andre Williams was the best running back in the country.

Of course, those of us who live in the West knew that wasn’t true – it was either Arizona’s Ka’Deem Carey or Washington’s Bishop Sankey who deserved that title. But you know, the East Coast falls asleep way too early to catch on that USC isn’t the only school West of Texas who participates in college football.

But we all know better now that the BCS title game has been played. It sure isn’t Williams, the Doak Walker Award winner. It sure isn’t Carey, the best running back in Arizona history. And it isn’t even Sankey, who has the looks of a future bell-cow back in the NFL.

Auburn’s Tre Mason is the best running back in college football. By far.

Jameis Winston may have produced the game-ending drive to give Florida State a 34-31 victory over Auburn in Monday’s title game at the Rose Bowl but he wasn’t close to being the star of the contest. That title belongs to Mason, who bludgeoned the Seminoles’ stingy defense for 195 rushing yards. (see stellar game recap here — http://sltrib.sportsdirectinc.com/football/ncaaf-boxscores.aspx?page=/data/NCAAF/results/2013-2014/recap41986.html)

Winston may have the Heisman Trophy on his mantle – wait, do college kids even have mantles? – and will rightfully have his game-winning touchdown pass to Kelvin Benjamin replayed over and over. But the most enduring memory of the final BCS game will forever be Mason’s scintillating 37-yard scoring run with 1:19 to play.

If Mason wasn’t so good, he might have been tackled on the play. If Mason gets tackled, perhaps Auburn works the clock down and scores a touchdown and Winston has no time to orchestrate a final drive.

But Mason was too good and so, so darn good that he somehow was still going strong on his 34th carry of the game.

He bulled through a tackle attempt by Florida State’s overmatched Jalen Ramsey at the 20-yard line and sailed into the end zone to finish off a scoring run worthy of being the game-winning points of the biggest contest of the season.

Watch the play again. Poor Ramsey couldn’t have tackled Mason if he had O.J. Simpson’s knife, George Zimmerman’s guns or an American tank at his disposal. No chance.

Mason finished the season with an Auburn-record 1,816 rushing yards. He surpassed the school mark of former Heisman winner Bo Jackson.

Repeat – the great Bo Jackson!

Perhaps the oddest part of the entire evening is that Mason felt he let Auburn fans down. Yes, really.

“We wanted to have the biggest turnaround in college football,” Mason said afterward. “I want to apologize for not fulfilling that. I tried to do everything to give us the best chance to win the national championship and I failed.”

Mason is only a junior but you have to figure that he will bypass his senior season and enter the NFL Draft. Running back is the one position where it behooves a player to leave early as there is only so much pounding the body can take before it begins to break down.

One college game typically doesn’t alter a player’s draft stock all that much. NFL talent evaluators rely more on the overall body of work and the measurables as opposed to getting caught up in any single contest.

But when you are the very best player on the field in the BCS title game – and excel like Mason did in the most pressure-packed moments – it tends to elevate your status and people take notice.

Kind of like how the entire sporting world caught on Monday – when Tre Mason was the best football player on the Rose Bowl turf.

By far.

May have spotted some game-day buzz in Boise after week of very little anticipation

Let me see if my eyes are working … ok, they are … wow, yeah, there really is a lot of Boise State blue in this grocery store on Saturday morning.

Every aisle I turn into, there is someone wearing Boise State colors. There are multiple cars in the parking lot with Boise State flags flying. Look, right there – a woman wearing a “Bronco Nation” T-shirt.

So apparently Boise State has been invited to play college football in 2013 after all. I was starting to wonder if declining the Big East invitation meant the Broncos were taking a season or two off.

There has been a noticeable lack of buzz in Boise leading up to what will surely be another winning campaign for the local university. Perhaps the locals have just gotten tired of their college football program winning all the time.

The Broncos open up with a visit to Washington – of the Pac-12 wise guy, not the Division III program located in St. Louis – and the level of anticipation is much more subdued compared to recent years.

Have the locals gotten so spoiled that opening on the road against a Pac-12 program is no longer a big deal?

Did the locals notice Boise State is underdogs against the middling Pac-12 school and are waiting to see if the Broncos win first before getting excited about the season?

Does the fact Boise State beat Washington in the Las Vegas Bowl at the end of last season made a second consecutive game against the Huskies less of an attraction?

Or could it just be expected after the high level of excitement over the previous three season-openers – high-profile games against Virginia Tech (2010), Georgia (2011) and Michigan State (2012).

The buzz was incredibly high for both the Virginia Tech and Georgia openers. You almost had to remind some Boise State fans that the season would continue – win or lose – after the big contests. The anticipation wasn’t quite as high for Michigan State as the locals were feeling heavy consternation over the fact that Joe Southwick would be the quarterback and not departed school legend Kellen Moore.

And sure enough, Boise State lost to the Spartans and Southwick struggled in his first start and the locals wanted him shipped to purgatory – or up north to Moscow, where the University of Idaho is located.

It was like the season was over because the record said 0-1.

Reflecting on that reminds me how badly the Boise State fan base needs to experience a 7-6 campaign. Or two or three middle-of-the-pack seasons in a row.

Or, well, lose to San Diego State again this year.

Boise desperately needs to grow as a sports city and it will never happen with another consecutive decade of 10-win seasons.

No such occurrence will happen this season – not with another lightweight schedule and Chris Petersen still employed as the head coach.

Just look at the second opponent on the big beer sponsored schedule hanging at the grocery store – “UT Martin.”

Who even knew Texas allowed a Martin to go along with the big-boy school in Austin – oh, not Texas?

Wow, never heard of Utah-Martin. When did they start playing football? Oh, not Utah either.

Oh, were talking Tennessee? Nobody out west refers to anything from Tennessee as UT. My apologies.

As you can see, there is definitely no chance of falling to 0-2 should the Broncos lose to Washington on Saturday night.

Boise State will certainly have its hands full with Huskies tailback Bishop Sankey, who was unstoppable in the December bowl game with 279 all-purpose yards (205 rushing, 74 receiving) but also received a huge break when All-American tight end Austin Seferian-Jenkins was suspended for a DUI offense. (see stellar preview here – http://sltrib.sportsdirectinc.com/football/ncaaf-preview.aspx?page=/data/NCAAF/matchups/g8_preview_82.html).

As if on cue, there is Kellen Moore on my television right now pitching the Boise-area car dealership he is affiliated with.

Hey, this lack of buzz is all his fault. The dude simply won too many games.