In College Football, It's Easy to Go From on Top to Toppled

Tripwires are oblivious to the size of those they bring down. Iowa backup place kicker Daniel Murray, for instance, was informed with 30 seconds remaining in last Saturday's showdown with then-No. 3 Penn State that he would attempt the game-winning field goal.

Murray, a sophomore who had lost the starting job after the Hawkeyes' fourth game, had stopped warming up along the sideline moments earlier. Coaches told him before the game that he would be responsible only for attempting long-range field goals that afternoon.

"Once we got to the 25-yard line, I figured [first-string place kicker] Trent [Mossbruker] was going to kick," Murray said. "It was kind of spur of the moment."

With one second left, Murray kicked a 31-yard field goal and then slid across a patch of grass at Kinnick Stadium on his knees. The home crowd roared. Penn State's players dejectedly trudged off the field. Yet again this season, a dismissively viewed underdog had knocked off a national title contender.

Few observers -- and probably not many Nittany Lions -- figured Iowa (6-4) to be the team that could ruin a storybook season. But the effectiveness of a tripwire lies in its furtiveness. Over the final weeks of the regular season, several top teams should be wary of beleaguered opponents.

"The players themselves are products of their environment," said R.C. Slocum, who coached at Texas A&M from 1989 to 2002. "And so what happens is when they talk to their Uncle Bill or they talk to the other kids on campus, they hear, 'Yeah, we'll win this one, but next week we've got to play Ohio State,' or whatever that is. At least subconsciously, they get seduced by those feelings."

The primary task, then, of coaches whose teams remain in the hunt for the BCS championship is to reshape that seductive environment as best they can. No. 1 Alabama hosts Mississippi State (3-6) tomorrow. On the horizon, Crimson Tide players can look forward to an Iron Bowl matchup against Auburn and a date with Florida in the Southeastern Conference championship game.

But Alabama Coach Nick Saban knows that any loss this late in the season essentially would eliminate Alabama from the national championship picture.

"I kind of tell our players, 'You're climbing a mountain and you're at 19,000 feet,' " Saban said. "The air changes a little bit; it's a little more rare. It's harder to breathe, but you've got to stay focused on the things that are going to help you continue to climb. And if you don't do that, the consequences can be even more severe because it's more dangerous at this elevation.

"It's always a management with people not getting relief syndrome and being satisfied with where they're at. . . . I think that's going to be the real key to all the teams that are in the position that we're in right now is who can do that the best."

Oregon State (6-3) does not have a shot at sneaking into the national title game, but seven weeks ago, the Beavers played a major role in determining its makeup. On Sept. 25, Oregon State defeated then-No. 1 Southern California, 27-21, in a game most observers agree the Beavers had little business winning.

On paper, the Trojans collectively have more athleticism and skill than does Oregon State. They also had a matchup against Oregon -- expected to be one of USC's top challengers for the Pacific-10 crown -- the following week. Through a lack of focus and execution, USC lost and ceded control of its BCS fate to a seemingly inferior opponent.

Should No. 23 Oregon State win its final three regular season games, the Beavers -- not the No. 6 Trojans -- will earn a spot in the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day. But Oregon State Coach Mike Riley knows better than to look that far ahead.

"We don't need to be thinking about anything but the next game and being ready for the next game and performing well in the next game," Riley said. "We should be obsessed with the next game. You never want to look back on a game and think that you might have even had a trace of not being ready because you were thinking about something else. I mean, it just seems like such a waste."

During his 14 seasons in charge at Texas A&M, Slocum and his teams spent their fair share of turns as both the tripwire and the unsuspecting victim. The Aggies went 6-6 in his final season, but one of those wins came against then-No. 1 Oklahoma. Slocum said the opportunity to knock the Sooners out of national title contention "definitely added to our motivation."

As much fun as it was to be the underdog, though, Slocum said he much rather preferred the challenge of preparing a favorite. Texas A&M won four conference championships under Slocum, and during those campaigns, Slocum said, setting the tone in the locker room immediately after each win was imperative.

"I tried to project to them what they were going to hear that night," Slocum said. "I'd be saying: 'When you leave here today and go out and everybody's gonna be huggin' your neck and saying we're in the driver's seat now for the championship. But don't buy into all the stuff you're going to hear tonight when you run into all your friends, 'cause when that happens, it's just a short time before someone cuts your butt down to size.' "