Updated Jan. 3, 2014 11:03 a.m. ET  Alabama kicker Adam Griffith lined up for a field goal. Auburn return man Chris Davis waited in the end zone with almost no time left on the clock. Over the next few seconds, the kick left Griffith's foot and landed in Davis's arms, producing maybe the most remarkable finish in college-football history. It also set up the Auburn Tigers' surprise appearance in Monday night's Bowl Championship Series title game against the No. 1 Florida State Seminoles.  The miraculous play, however, wasn't so much about divine intervention as it was the result of strategic creativity, calculated risk and hidden talent—with timely luck and unlikely characters intermingling at just the right moment. A careful review of game film and interviews with people involved show that Auburn wouldn't have won and Alabama wouldn't have lost if not for two audacious coaching decisions. One almost worked. The other one did.  On Nov. 30, as the game clock ticked down in the fourth quarter with the score tied at 28, Auburn had already exceeded expectations. Alabama, the two-time defending national champion, was a 10-point favorite on the road. It had been ranked No. 1 in the country since the preseason. In the previous Iron Bowl rivalry game a year before, the Crimson Tide had embarrassed the Tigers, a 49-0 win that cost Auburn coach Gene Chizik his job and led to the hiring of first-year coach Gus Malzahn.  This season, Auburn fans were still soaking up their last game at Jordan-Hare Stadium, which had ended in astonishing fashion. Trailing by a point with 36 seconds to go, the Tigers lobbed a 73-yard pass that was deflected and still resulted in a game-winning touchdown. By the next morning, the play was known as "The Prayer at Jordan-Hare."  Now, two weeks later, Auburn was hanging in, tying the game with 32 seconds left. That score gave the ball back to Alabama. With time running out, Alabama running back T.J. Yeldon sprinted into Auburn territory and out of bounds at the 38-yard line, just as the clock hit zero and overtime seemed inevitable. The officials said time had expired, but Alabama coach Nick Saban protested. After a lengthy review, the officials delivered their verdict to the boos of 87,451 Tigers fans: One second was reposted on the clock. Alabama had a last chance to score.  Saban, the dominant coach of his generation, faced a dilemma. As it turned out, Alabama had landed on the tiny area of the field packed with uncertainty. Saban would have tried a desperation heave if Alabama were five yards farther back and would've trotted out the kicker for a no-brainer field goal if the Tide were five yards farther up. But in this no man's land, Saban would have to make a decision that could be questioned either way. Would it be a Hail Mary pass, or a prayerful field-goal attempt?  Saban's deliberations were complicated by the struggles of his starting kicker, Cade Foster, who had been almost perfect on the season. But on this day he had missed field goals from 33 and 44 yards and had another 44-yard attempt blocked in the fourth quarter. Already, Saban had showed his uneasiness with Foster by keeping his offense on the field for a fourth down at Auburn's 13-yard line in the fourth quarter, instead of sending out Foster for a chip-shot field goal. After the game, George W. Bush sent Foster a handwritten note. "Dear Cade (#43)," wrote the 43rd president. "Life has its setbacks. I know!"  The television commentators were still talking about Hail Marys when Saban made up his mind: He sent Alabama's kicking team onto the field.  Saban was flouting history. In the last five seasons, college kickers had attempted 11,648 field goals. Only 0.9% were from beyond 55 yards, according to Stats LLC. This 57-yard field goal would have been Alabama's longest field goal ever.  Even more unexpected was that Saban had summoned a new kicker for such a crucial situation. He left Foster on the bench and tapped his backup, a redshirt freshman named Adam Griffith.  Griffith had caught Saban's eye at a summer camp by booting field goals so high that they brushed the ceiling of Alabama's practice facility. Though Griffith wasn't yet a high-school junior, Saban offered him a scholarship that very day. Griffith was born far from big-time college football as the youngest of five brothers and the last adopted from an orphanage in Poland. He moved to Calhoun, Ga., at age 13, knowing barely a word of English. He was still so new to football that after he first met Saban, his father said, he asked if that was the same guy who made a cameo in "The Blind Side" (he was).  In the most pressure-packed of circumstances, Saban was putting his trust in raw ability. Griffith had attempted just two field goals in his college career, making a 20-yarder and missing a 30-yarder in games that had long been decided. But Saban said he had seen him drill 60-yard kicks in practice. Griffith was used to kicking under pressure, too. As a high-school senior, he had nailed a 32-yard field goal in overtime to win a state championship.  At the time, it seemed like a no-lose situation for Alabama. Even if Griffith missed the kick, Alabama still could win in overtime. Only under two scenarios could Saban's decision backfire. Auburn could block the kick and return it for a touchdown, which had happened in major-college football a total of eight times this season. Or Auburn could pull off something so rare that it was scarcely a possibility.  While Saban weighed his options on the sideline, Auburn's coaches were huddled across the field, hatching a plan of their own. One of Auburn's graduate assistants, Cam Clark, made a key point. Like Griffith, Clark came from Calhoun, Ga., and was familiar with his style: Griffith's kicks were quick and high, more like pop flies than line drives. He argued that the Tigers would have trouble blocking a Griffith kick. They would need another strategy.  Auburn defensive coordinator Ellis Johnson, a nearly four-decade coaching veteran with two coaching stints at Alabama, suggested positioning a player below the goal posts in case the kick fell short. The coaches quickly dispatched Ryan Smith, a safety often assigned to anticipate fake field-goal plays, to the end zone as Griffith came out for the kick.  Auburn coach Malzahn called a timeout—a common ploy used to try to rattle kickers—as the coaches continued to plot their strategy. "Look, if we're going to put somebody back there, let's put Chris Davis," Malzahn said.  Davis grew up in Birmingham, Ala. and was a high-school quarterback. Nicknamed "Bay Bay," he was a cerebral player who eschewed wearing wristbands, the memorization method of most quarterbacks. The only arm accessory his high-school coach recalled Davis owning was for its inspirational message: "BAY BAY DO YO THING." Davis was an offensive dynamo in high school, but Auburn's coaches pitched him on two other roles: playing cornerback and returning kicks. After Davis committed in Dec. 2009, he said: "They think I can make history down there."  For his first three college seasons, though, Davis didn't return a single kick. Once he earned a job as a starting cornerback, he became so vital that coaches didn't want to distract him with punt returns. But with the turmoil that saw Auburn win the national championship in 2010, then fire Chizik two plummeting seasons later, came opportunity for Davis. The Tigers hired Malzahn, the offensive mastermind of that title team, and he re-examined everything about the roster. Davis had been so frustrated that on Dec. 4, 2012, the day Malzahn was introduced as Auburn's coach, he vented on Twitter: "I need to get on kick return and punt return this year."  Malzahn officially named Davis as his first-string punt returner, ahead of Auburn's incumbents, about 72 hours before Auburn's season opener. Davis thrived in the role. In a position that doesn't lend itself to extravagant statistics—Davis and his backups attempted returns only 41% of the time—his average of 20.1 yards per return ranked No. 2 in the country. He had broken free for an 85-yard touchdown in a Nov. 9 game, three weeks before the Iron Bowl.  Malzahn knew he wanted Davis to have the chance to return a missed field goal. But it was a slim chance. If Griffith were to make the kick, the game would be over. If the kick hit the uprights, or went out of bounds, the ball would be dead. Malzahn spoke to Davis about the situation and sent him to the back of the end zone. "Do what you do," he said.  What happened next was the break that Auburn needed. Davis looked at Alabama's field-goal unit about 50 yards in front of him. Instead of facing a punt-coverage team designed to prevent a runback, with speedy gunners and ultra-athletic tacklers, he faced a bunch of bulky blockers meant to protect the kicker. The average weight of these linebackers, linemen and tight ends was 289 pounds—about 70 pounds beefier than Alabama's punt-coverage team. "Ain't nothing but heavy individuals," Davis later told a friend.  Before the Auburn coaches called the timeout to make their substitutions, they had stacked 10 players on the line, a normal kick-block formation. When they scrapped that plan, they dialed up another, game-changing look. Smith, the original returner, stood five yards from the line of scrimmage. Another defender paced five yards behind him. The field-goal blocker on the right edge barely charged forward when the ball was snapped. Davis waited in the end zone.  Auburn wasn't trying for a field-goal block. It had set up for a modified punt return.  This was an outrageous long shot: Only three times at this level of college football had any team returned a missed field goal for a touchdown—twice in the 1960s and once earlier this season. The concept was so unthinkable that the NCAA doesn't even keep a category in its record book for the play. It counts field-goal returns as punt returns. But the Tigers had nothing to lose. As Johnson said, they were "playing with somebody else's money."  It turned out to be an ingenious call. A slight breeze blew at his back as Griffith sent the ball spinning through the air for almost four seconds. It was a booming kick that tracked toward the uprights and might have sneaked through from 55 yards. But the distance was 57 yards, maybe even more from the field's left hash mark, and the ball fell short—right into Davis's arms.  Davis fielded the ball one yard from the back of the end zone, took five quick steps and feinted right. Then he cut back to the left. By that time, Auburn's blockers were in position. It was a classic mismatch: Davis would be racing into a field-goal-coverage team—the equivalent of a quarterback passing against a defense prepared to stop the run.  Cassanova McKinzy, a teammate of Davis's in high school, landed the first block and opened up 20 yards to Davis's left. From there, he was protected by three Auburn players, lined up like the Big Dipper. Smith, the original returner, made the second crucial hit, leveling an Alabama lineman who had 121 pounds on him. Another Alabama player dove and would have tackled Davis by the right shoulder—if Davis weren't already past him. In a flash, Davis was 10 yards downfield, inches from the sideline, gazing at nothing but open field. Citing a grainy photo, Alabama fans later contended that Davis stepped out of bounds, starting an online petition to go back and play the overtime. Cody Mandell, the overmatched Alabama holder, made one last futile attempt at knocking Davis off his course. But it was too late. Davis was gone.  "Touchdown, Auburn—an answered prayer!" shouted veteran CBS broadcaster Verne Lundquist, who was calling the game. After the 109-yard touchdown return, Lundquist allowed for 65 seconds of silence so viewers could drink in the fan celebration as the TV audience swelled to 21 million people. Above the field, in the coaches' box, Johnson and his fellow assistants were high-fiving. "We had never worked on it," Johnson said of the play. "It was the most amazing thing."  The ripple effects of Davis's mad dash revealed themselves over the next week. Coaches around the country added field-goal returns—and field-goal-return coverage—to their practice agendas. Auburn beat Missouri to win an improbable SEC title, and once Michigan State spoiled Ohio State's undefeated season, the Tigers took their spot in Monday's national championship.  Two days after emerging from the celebratory pile-on, Davis said, he received a standing ovation in his Monday geology class. That night, though, he made it back to his room with his family and sat on a sofa with his grandmother. As a small party raged around them, they watched the play over and over.  Corrections & Amplifications An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Cam Clark was an Alabama graduate assistant. He is an Auburn graduate assistant.  Write to Ben Cohen at ben.cohen@wsj.com and Rachel Bachman at rachel.bachman@wsj.com
Strategic creativity and calculated risk: a deep-dive look at the historic last-second runback by Chris Davis that sent his team to the BCS title game