War Eagle! And welcome to my family.

It should be pretty obvious by now that we love sports. And college football?

Why, it's our ultimate favorite.

Needless to say, the BCS championship game is like a national holiday in our lives. Last night's game, which is indisputably the best championship game college football has seen in years, was even more important because it included Auburn. Remember that one time we became Auburn fans? We've cheered them on ever since, and while we'll always be loyal to our alma maters, we've very much enjoyed having an SEC team to call ours as well.

Matt and I decided to sport our Auburn pride in public for the big game, which was maybe not the smartest thing to do in Pac-10 country. Poor Matt had to keep asking me to tone down my cheering so we wouldn't get jumped by the sketchy-looking drunk kids who were rooting for Oregon at the table next to us. But come on, in a game like this, how can you not cheer wildly? It was such an incredibly match-up, and such an incredible game. We're big proponents of some sort of college playoff system (which also includes bowls and uses BCS standings as seeding), but to be perfectly honest, this time we really felt like the BCS got it exactly right with the championship teams.

Before the game started, Matt told me that one of his friends predicted that the game's winner would be obvious after the first quarter. I nearly spit out my water at the ridiculousness of such a statement, and then proceeded to spout off how many times each team has come from behind to win this year (Oregon: 8, Auburn: 7). "I don't care if a team is down three possessions at the beginning of the fourth," I told Matt. "This game isn't over until the fourth quarter is." Bless his heart for putting up with my indignant sports reporter-ness. But you know, in the end I was right: the game was tied 19-19 with two seconds left on the clock, and Auburn lined up for a field goal.

Normally, this situation would make fans nervous. But I made sure to take pictures of key stats with my baby camera to have on hand for times like that (did I mention I'm a sports reporter?). I quickly looked up Byrum's kicking statistics and was satisfied to see that he made 70-of-71 PAT attempts this year, from essentially the same spot. So we breathed a sigh of relief, sat back, and watched the national championship-winning field goal sail through the uprights as time expired. War Eagle! This, naturally, made us very happy. Matt and I came home and celebrated with some ice cream and friends. (Because nothing says "celebration" quite like Ben & Jerry's.)

In addition to Auburn's victory on the football field, I was also celebrating the fact that their win gave me the victory in my family's ESPN College Bowl Mania group. Welcome to my family, where that is a huge deal! I finished in the 99.8th percentile in America this time around, including getting 12 of the last 13 bowl winners right. Not bad, eh? My family also had a friendly College U Pick 'Em competition this season, which Jordan won with my parents in a close second and third, and me and Matt finishing fourth and fifth. All this means that the months and months of friendly trash-talking and "spying" on each others picks has sadly come to an end, and will be on hold until March Madness rolls around. So in the meantime, I guess now it's time to give Jordan and me a big reward... right, fam? :-) Although, bragging rights are more than enough 'round these parts.

War Eagle.