Auburn's BCS title shot fueled by disappointment of 2012

[Saniflush]

NEWPORT BEACH, California -- Here in the sun-drenched hills of southern California, a stone's throw from the Pacific Ocean, Gus Malzahn's New Day has never looked better, a week of preparation in paradise for the BCS National Championship.

Planted squarely in the middle of this atmosphere, treated like kings, the Tigers seem so many miles away from where this season started, birthed in the muck and haze and overcast skies of a lost season.

For a moment, it's easy to forget that 3-9 disaster.

Except that the Tigers themselves have each taken pieces, little reminders of how far they've come, markers to make sure it wouldn't happen again. At this time last year, with bowl games on their TVs, the Tigers had all the motivation they needed.

"I was actually at home, sitting on my couch, thinking I never want what happened to ever happen again," Auburn tight end C.J. Uzomah said. "Never again" is kind of the mantra we took on, a few of us were saying it."

Angry teams, teams desperate to fight, hell-bent on proving somebody wrong, are always dangerous.

For that reason, teams at the top – teams that haven't faced true adversity, the kind Auburn experienced last season – are always looking for something to battle, some slight to seize on and wrestle over and turn into motivation.

Auburn hasn't had to do any of that in its improbable run to Pasadena.

This team remembers rock bottom.

"The low point for me was after we lost six games, we weren't going to a bowl game," team captain Reese Dismukes said. "You kind of look at yourself in the mirror, like what are you playing for?"

That's a hard feeling to forget.

Not even after a new coach sweeps in, turns everything over and starts building, telling players all along that they're headed for the biggest turnaround in college football.

Even among an avalanche of fourth-quarter comebacks and a Prayer in Jordan-Hare and a Kick Six and the most dominant offensive performance the SEC title game has ever seen, the Tigers who remember that feeling haven't taken anything for granted.

Watch what happens when Nick Marshall or Tre Mason or any of the Tigers' other stars reaches the end zone.

An entire team, in hot pursuit to the end zone to celebrate as wildly as the rules allow – and every once in a while, in big moments, a little beyond that.

Old-school football guys like to spout off something like "act like you've been there before" when teams celebrate like Auburn does after a score.

The Tigers act like a team that remembers what it's like when the scores never came.

"What we went through last year, 3‑9, we really didn't score a lot of points," Dismukes said. "When you go through something like that, you take advantage of every opportunity to celebrate after you score a touchdown."

Over and over again this season, Auburn has been asked the same question.

How did you pull this turnaround off? The long answer has a lot of moving parts, from Gus Malzahn to an experienced staff to improved discipline to Marshall and Mason and the offensive line and Ellis Johnson and a couple of the greatest plays in college football thrown in for good measure.

The short answer, the motivation behind the magic, is simple.

In stark contrast with Florida State, a confident, boisterous team, Auburn is attacking the BCS title game the same way it has all season.

As an underdog.

"I feel that what changed for us was just being 3‑9, period, it motivated us as a team," Mason said. "Coming into this year we had a lot to prove. We still have something to prove."

That's not a bad place to be.