Will Florida State end SEC's streak?

ByCHRIS LOW
December 9, 2013, 1:12 AM

— -- We say goodbye to the BCS (and, yes, some will say good riddance) with a matchup in the final VIZIO BCS National Championship that may be the toughest assignment yet for the conference everybody loves to hate.

The SEC, the epitaph on its national championship streak all but written just a week ago, is back on college football's grandest stage.

And if anybody says they tabbed Auburn back in the preseason to be the team carrying the SEC's banner, they either have a serious problem with the truth or are seriously psychic.

Either way, talk about a compelling way to bid adieu to the BCS era.

No. 1 Florida State vs. No. 2 Auburn.

One team established itself as the country's most talented team from the outset of the season, but had seemed to invent ways in recent years on how not to get to this point. One team didn't even win a conference game and fired its coach last season and was never supposed to be playing for a national championship. 

They collide in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 6 in Pasadena, Calif., in what will be the final BCS National Championship.

"We showed the world that we belong here, and we're not done yet," Auburn receiver Sammie Coates said.

But as we pull the shade on the BCS one final time, this may be a game that gets us to rethink what championship defense truly is.