Four-Down Territory: College football’s best of 2013, and looking ahead to 2014

Auburn players lay in confetti after the second half of the Southeastern Conference NCAA football championship game against the Missouri, Saturday, Dec. 7, 2013, in Atlanta. Auburn won 59-42. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

The Associated Press

Auburn players lay in confetti after the second half of the Southeastern Conference NCAA football championship game against the Missouri, Saturday, Dec. 7, 2013, in Atlanta. Auburn won 59-42. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)
Auburn players lay in confetti after the second half of the Southeastern Conference NCAA football championship game against the Missouri, Saturday, Dec. 7, 2013, in Atlanta. Auburn won 59-42. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

With bowl season well underway and the yearly wave of coaching changes in full effect, now seems like a good time to remember some of the best moments of the 2013 season and look ahead to what might be in the cards for next year.

Here are four downs for your Christmas morning, highlighting the biggest midweek stories in college football:
1st Down: Year of the Tiger
Under the tutelage of first-year head coach Gus Malzahn, No. 2 Auburn produced more than its fair share of 2013’s biggest moments, particularly down the stretch of the regular season.
It started on Nov. 16, when quarterback Nick Marshall’s desperation heave on 4th and 18 was tipped by a Georgia defender before falling gracefully into the arms of receiver Ricardo Louis, who raced into the endzone to keep Auburn’s BCS hopes alive. The play, which has since been dubbed as the “Miracle at Jordan-Hare” was good enough for second-best on USA Today writer Paul Myerberg’s list of top moments from the 2013 season.
Two weeks later, in arguably the biggest Iron Bowl ever, Auburn one-upped itself. With one second left and Alabama kicking a field goal to win the game and punch a ticket to the SEC championship game, Auburn’s Chris Davis fielded the field goal in the back of the endzone and ran 109 yards to turn college football upside down.
An SEC title game victory over Missouri and a Michigan State defeat of previously undefeated Ohio State later, Auburn’s road from 3-9 to Pasadena was complete. Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated ranks Auburn’s unlikely turnaround as his favorite story from 2013:
Auburn’s charmed season will culminate next month with the most improbable run to the BCS National Championship Game in the event’s 16-year history. One year ago, Auburn finished a miserable 3-9 (0-8 SEC) season in which its dysfunctional offense could not have inspired less confidence. Following coach Gene Chizik’s ouster, the school brought back Malzahn, the offensive wizard who helped Chizik and Cam Newton win the 2010 national title. With the help of juco transfer quarterback Nick Marshall and stud running back Tre Mason, Auburn didn’t just improve — it produced the nation’s most powerful rushing attack, gashing Missouri for 545 yards in the SEC title game. The Tigers’ nine-win improvement is tied for the biggest one-year turnaround in FBS history, and they’ve still got another game left to play.
On the other sideline on Jan. 6 will be No. 1 Florida State, led by freshman quarterback Jameis Winston — landslide Heisman trophy winner and theAssociated Press national player of the year.
Between his surprising outbreak season on the field and criminal allegations that threatened to take him off the field, Winston’s name was all over the headlines in 2013. And by becoming the second freshman to win the Heisman, one year after Texas A&M freshman quarterback Johnny Manzial became the first, Winston may have changed Heisman voting forever, writes Myerberg:
With Florida State’s Jameis Winston following in Manziel’s footsteps, the floodgates are now open. Two takeaways from Winston’s follow-up to Manziel’s breakthrough: one, that this could become a normal occurrence, finally; and two, recruits are arriving on campus better prepared for the grind of college football than ever before.
2nd Down: Looking ahead
Without a doubt, the biggest and in many minds the most welcome change that 2014 will bring to college football is the College Football Playoff. The BCS era will officially end in the late hours of Jan. 6, opening the door for the playoff system and its 12-year reign to begin.
If you’re wondering just how the College Football Playoff will work, who’s on the selection committee, or anything else about the system, NOLA.com’s Trey Iles has your answer. Here are the basics:
The top seed will meet the fourth seed and the second seed will be paired against the third seed on either New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day in the semifinals. The two winners will then play about 10 days later for the national championship.
Six bowls, including the Allstate Sugar Bowl, will rotate to host the semifinal round. The championship game will be bid out like the Super Bowl and Final Four. Arlington, Texas (2015); Glendale, Ariz. (2016) and Tampa, Fla. (2017) will host the first three national championships.
• A host of players that made a name for themselves in college won’t experience the playoff system as they take the step to the next level. And some of those players still have one more chance to make their case for NFL Draft consideration with on-field play. From Sports Illustrated’s Chris Burke, here’s a list of  NFL prospects to watch in week 2 of the bowl season.
• At the other end of the spectrum are the rising freshman, who will suit up for their respective colleges for the first time in 2014. Many are still yet to declare which school they will attend, but USA Today compiled the 2013 American Family Insurance All-USA high school football team, featuring players that will be coming to a college stadium near you next fall.
• The bowl season provides fans and coaches the opportunity to take stock of what they expect to have for next season. Advance Digital’s Gary Laney, Alabama Media Group’s Andrew Gribble and NOLA.com’s Ron Higgins highlight three SEC teams that will be paying extra attention to their bowl game quarterbacks, who are expected to carry the torch in 20143rd Down: Texas’ search continues

The 16-year tenure of Texas head coach Mack Brown will come to an end after the Longhorns play in the Alamo Bowl on Dec. 30. This isn’t news by now, but information is surfacing about how Brown’s resignation came to be that suggests Brown was poised to continue coaching at Texas before losing support from University of Texas president Bill Powers: (via Yahoo! Sports)
As of Saturday morning, Dec. 14, Mack Brown was going to be the Texas football coach in 2014. It had not been announced, but the decision had been made. Brown held a breakfast for recruits who were in town on official visits, and new athletic director Steve Patterson dropped by the breakfast to visit with the prospects.
Afterward, Brown and Patterson spent hours discussing the future of the program, potential improvements in the athletic department and other aspects of their working relationship going forward.
About an hour after that meeting ended, Brown got a call from Patterson, according to a source with intimate knowledge of the situation. The tone was completely different from the upbeat meeting that had just occurred.

• No matter how Brown’s 16 years as a Longhorn ended, Texas needs to find a coach to replace him. The Austin American-Statesman is keeping tabs on all of the daily news, including Tuesday’s developments:

On the Art Briles-to-D.C. front, Washington Redskins coach Mike Shanahan says he expects his situation to be cleared up Sunday, after the regular-season finale against the New York Giants. But he sounded like he wants to stay and keep building Washington up. Briles, obviously, can’t become the Redskins’ next coach if Shanahan remains.

• If Texas should be so bold as to let fans decide who to hire as its next coach, they will soon have their answer thanks to Sports Illustrated, which created a 32-coach bracket to determine who will be the next coach of the Longhorns based on fan voting.

The bracket has reached the Elite Eight, with Vanderbilt’s James Franklin, Florida State’s Jimbo Fisher, Louisville’s Charlie Strong, Briles, ESPN’s Jon Gruden, 49ers’ Jim Harbaugh, Stanford’s David Shaw and Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy still in the running.
4th Down: Coaching Carousel
 
As of now, 11 college head-coaching jobs have been filled. Jeremy Fowler of CBS Sports is keeping track of teams that lucked out and were able to retain any exceptionally important coaches. Might Alabama be the luckiest?
Alabama had to keep Nick Saban. Had to. AD Bill Battle couldn’t lose Saban in his first year on the job. So Alabama raised Saban’s pay about 30 percent to more than $7 million per year, or about 14 MAC coaches. And Saban’s still probably a bargain.

• If Penn State coach Bill O’Brien makes the jump to the NFL, it appears the Nittany Lions will have no shortage of qualified suitors. (via CBSSports.com)

• In the midst of a five-game losing streak to archrival Navy, Army hired former Navy assistant and Georgia Southern head coach Jeff Monken as its new head coach. (via The Associated Press)
After an abysmal 2013 season, Florida is expected to hire Duke offensive coordinator Kurt Roper to the same position. (via ESPN.com)