What a Awful Year for College Football

We should have known this would be a terrible year for college football. We should have known this was going to be a lame duck college football season. We didn't want believe it though. We didn't want to believe this season was going to be terrible/mediocre. A year filled with tragedy and controversy. We should have known from the very beginning.

Before the college football season even started, we had massive conference realignment. Teams were jumping from one conference to the other at such a fast paste that it was hard to keep up with. And with teams jumping conferences, we had lame duck teams finishing out their seasons in their current conferences before they could move on. We had teams creating their own television networks (Texas) and one team (BYU) going independent instead of jumping to a conference.

We had the USC-Reggie Bush scandal that would only kick off a year of scandals. Who knew the USC sanctions in July would only be the tip of the iceberg? We had a plague of agent scandals, one that lead to the decimation of loaded UNC team while also touching schools like Georgia and Alabama. And I haven't even gotten to Cam Newton yet.


The season itself wasn't much better. I complained in the majority of Must Lists this year about the lack of compelling games. And really? Wasn't I right? Besides the usual Les Miles nonsense games, the college football games were terrible. Bad morning games, great afternoon games, bad night games week in and week out. It was just a bad season. And the bowl games aren't much better.

The Orange Bowl between Virginia Tech-Stanford is reminiscent of the Wake Forest-Louisville Orange Bowl back in 07 that has Orange Bowl official looking for a piece of rope and a tree to hang themselves with.

The Fiesta Bowl is so bland and boring, Bob Stoops' team can't even choke to the pathetic Big East winner UConn.

The BCS at least got it right with a national championship game featuring Oregon and Auburn. They were the two best teams in the nation this year and no one can question that. Even in this game though, the college football season transgressions are highlighted. Auburn's Cameron Newton and Oregon's LeMichael James have been targeted by the NCAA.

By now everyone knows of the pay-for-play scandal involving Newton, his father, and Auburn. Everyone knows by now that Newton was caught stealing a laptop while at Florida. Newton was also caught three times at Florida for academically cheating. Not exactly an ideal "student."

LeMichael James has had his own problems. He pleaded guilty in March to physical harassment of his ex-girlfriend and is on a 24-month probation after he allegedly grabbed her neck and pushed her to the ground during an argument. Very classy I tell ya. And I won't even mention Oregon kicking Jeremiah Masoli off the team for stealing a laptop and for being caught with marijuana.

The Big East and ACC were both dreadful conferences that made you wonder how those conferences are really given automatic-qualifier status into the BCS games if they win their conference. The Big East itself should be ashamed of the season they had. Even typically deep conferences like the SEC and Big XII had terrible years. The Big Ten and Pac-10 just plodded along waiting to expand their conferences.

We've also had tragedies that has overshadowed the season. Notre Dame student manager Declan Sullivan was killed while on a cherry picker video taping the Fighting Irish's practice. Notre Dame's response to Sullivan's death was nothing short of atrocious to the point the schools head Priest had to apologize for the head coach and AD's response to Sullivan's death. 

Tragedy also struck Rutgers as defensive tackle Eric Legrand was paralyzed from the neck down making a tackle on a kick return. Both Legrand and Sullivan makes us realize that there is more to life than wins and losses.

We've had terrible college football seasons before. Remember the 2007 season when a two-loss LSU played a two-loss Ohio State for the national championship? But we've never seen such a truly frustrating, maddening, disappointing season like this year. It was to say the least a nightmare year. Nothing went right. Nothing to really celebrate. Just counting down the days until it's finally over.

Maybe we have another disappointing year next season in college football? Maybe the cannonball splash from the conference realignment and the new crackdown by the NCAA produces another season like this one. I hope not. I cannot relive another year like this. Too much controversy. Too much tragedy. Too much mediocrity. Here's too a better season next year. Hopefully we never relive 2010 again.