It was supposed to be an offensive classic. It was supposed to be all about Cam Newton (as almost everything in college football, good and bad, seems to have been this season).

Instead, the BCS National Championship turned on a freshman running back who wouldn't stay down (at least once everyone on the Auburn University sideline started yelling at him), on an instant replay decision, on the power of Auburn's forgotten Houston award winner, on the shortest game-winning kick you'll ever see.

It ended with No. 1 Auburn beating No. 2 Oregon 22-19 on a 19-yard field goal on the game's final play. But even as the confetti rained down on the Tigers at the spaceship-looking University of Phoenix stadium, even as Newton declared, "It's just a God thing," it was best to keep one thing in mind.

Close doesn't necessarily mean classic. And this messy, exciting hodgepodge of a championship game certainly wasn't that. In the days leading up to this hyper hyped game (and there were a lot of days, 37 to be exact since these teams last played a game), a ton of talk cropped up centering around the fact that this would be a national championship game that matched Texas' dramatic toppling of then-superpower USC (more commonly known as the Vince Young Game) in thrills.

But a funny thing happened to the most prematurely branded "instant classic" in sports history. It came up as short as Hugh Hefner without his little blue pill.

Texas-USC of 2006 featured megastars on both sides playing some of the best football of their lives. Auburn-Oregon broke down into two good teams playing in fits and starts. The Ducks nearly managed to force overtime despite having only about five impressive offensive plays all game — with two or three of them coming in the eight-point drive that tied things at 19 with 2:36 left.

Nothing classic here. Newton was good, but not close to VY. He rightly wasn't even declared the player of the game, with Tiger tailback Michael Dyer getting the nod, for his 143 rushing yards on 22 carries, including the game-deciding roll over of an Oregon tackler that somehow turned into a 37-yard gain that well seemingly the technically correct call is one lame way to decide a championship game (even Dyer gave up on the play before the sideline screams, knowing he'd been stopped).

A third Tiger was really the dominant force on this night — defensive tackle Nick Fairley, the man who largely, quietly won the Lombardi Award in Houston just a few nights before Newton's Heisman Trophy moment in New York dominated the sports world.

Fairley is the one who stopped Oregon on third and fourth down on the Tigers' third-quarter goal-line stand that was truly the moment of the game. The junior finished with five tackles behind the line of scrimmage, several game-changing moments and one of his patented dirty plays (hitting Ducks tailback LaMichael James in the helmet when James was on the ground) that belie his happy-go-lucky off-the-field demeanor.

"I never stress about football man," Fairley told me at the Lombardi Award presentation. "That would just be silly."

On many levels, that's exactly what this game was: Silly. The matchup that many thought would result in both teams coming close to dropping 40 points on the board resulted in the two combining for only 41. Total.

"I could not be more proud of our defense," Auburn coach Gene Chizik said in his on-field TV interview. "For one month, our defense was bound and determined to show up and play the best game of their life."

Nice quote, but the Ducks waddle offense seemed to be the result of plenty of nerves and rust too. And Auburn's wasn't much better for most of the night. Even with Cam.

The Father

On the shiny, purposefully feel-good stage of the BCS' dream game, Newton couldn't come close to escaping the pay-for-play demands of his father. Newton's dad Cecil — who an NCAA investigation found asked for $180,000 for his son to commit to Mississippi State — was in Arizona, but asked to stay away from the stadium in the suburbs by Auburn officials.

For the second consecutive national championship game, the biggest star on the field would be dogged by questions about an absent father who wanted to be there (last January, Alabama tailback Mark Ingram Jr. powered the Crimson Tide to a national title while his father sat in prison).

Newton — college football's ultimate dual threat — was mostly turned one dimensional as Oregon largely shut off his running lanes until late in the second half. So Newton simply did that one dimension even better he usually does, completing 20 of 34 passes for 265 yards, two touchdowns and a 137.8 quarterback rating.

He was less shaky than Oregon quarterback Darron Thomas, who threw two interceptions among his 40 passes and couldn't get the Ducks into the end zone on numerous failed chances. That's the best you can say about Newton on this night. And it's not close to Vince Young worthy.

The game ended entertainingly and controversially (if you don't think the rule should be changed so a Dyer would be declared down on that play next season, you might want to go back to watching The Bachelor). But that doesn't make it close to great.

Sure, if you live in certain parts of Alabama, it may tickle to see all the toilet paper being rolled into the trees on Auburn's campus. And maybe Chizik being goaded by an ESPN interviewer into screaming out "War Eagle!" a few times (and most 2-year-olds need less prompting than Chizik took to catch on) made a few swoon. But a classic ... Child, please.

This game was enough to make you want to give TCU another look. Kidding.

That would be even more ridiculous than this BCS title tilt trying to pose as an all-timer. Vince Young's college legacy is more than safe. It looks even better this morning after.