A little late on this story, and i'm pretty upset with myself for not blogging earlier and doing the one job I have all winter break. Regardless, the BCS national championship game is a little less than two weeks away and two of the main factors in the game made headlines in the past few days.The Associated Press made their selections for player of the year and coach of the year on December 23rd.
Florida State Quarterback Jameis Winston took home the player of the year award while Auburn's Head Coach Gus Malzahn won this year's coaching award. Good choices by the Associated Press on both of these awards. The point of the award is to name the player or coach that meant the most for their team and I think the committee hit the nail right on the head with both of these picks.
Without Jameis Winston, Florida State is a very talented and competitive college football team. However, he took this team to the next level and removed their curse of consistency at the quarterback position. Christian Ponder and E.J. Manuel did a great job with the Florida State teams that they led, however, they never seemed to stay healthy in the crucial moments of the big games. Just last year we saw it with Manuel, who was hurt in big possessions in the final quarter of both the NC State and Miami games, Florida State's lone losses in the 2013-13 season.I understand the strength of the defense and the offensive weapons that he inherited. But the fact still remains that this football team would never be anywhere close to Pasadena without Winston at the helm.
As for Malzahn, his coaching genius has been on display all season long. By a stroke of miracle, Malzahn was able to do something that only a small list of head coaches have been able to do since 2007, beat a Nick Saban lead Alabama Crimson Tide. However, it wasn't the nature of that victory that made the win so important for the Auburn head coach. In that game, he out-coached Nick Saban. There was no way around it. He matched the ground and pound method of Alabama and the strength of this run game allowed him to open lanes for his quarterback Nick Marshall. Marshall took advantage and showed the vulnerability of the seemingly invincible Alabama defense. He did so in a way that was reminiscent of Johnny Manziel, the only other quarterback to take down Bama in the past two years.
Although there has certainly been luck in Auburn's season, a lot of that has more to do with the coaching genius of Gus Malzahn. He puts his players in position to achieve success in crucial moments, and they did so all season long.
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