ShareThisWith the college football season down to a precious few games (before a mere 34 bowl games starting Dec. 20), it's time for our annual awards. A reminder that our voting is not handled by Deloitte and Touche (official accounting firm for the Heisman Trophy).
-- "Roll Tide!'' award: To whatever Bowl Championship Series supporters left out there. Wave your red-and-white shakers proudly. Because unless No. 1 Alabama goes unbeaten with wins over Florida in Saturday's SEC Championship Game and then in the BCS national title game Jan. 6, it will be virtually impossible to view this year's BCS winner as legitimate.
Oklahoma's ludicrous passing of Texas, a 45-35 winner over the Sooners on Oct. 11 in Dallas, in this week's BCS standings puts the Sooners into the Big 12 title game. If a neutral-site game played a month ago isn't a good enough tiebreaker, what is? The Sooners can thank the perennially confused Coaches poll and the frivolous computer rankings for their spot in Kansas City, where they are 17-point favorites over Missouri, which is 1-18 vs. OU since 1984.
Then again, it's hard to work up sympathy for Texas, not after Longhorns coach Mack Brown lobbied his fellow coaches to vote his Longhorns into the 2004 Rose Bowl over 10-1 Cal, which still hasn't seen the Rose Bowl since 1959.
Maybe the anticipated Oklahoma-Florida national title game will be compelling. But is it any better than other once-beaten matchups (Texas Tech-Penn State, Texas-USC)? And the A.P. poll might just thumb its nose at the BCS champion (especially if it's Oklahoma) and vote somebody else No. 1, as it did USC over BCS pick LSU in 2003.
-- "You're no Knute Rockne'' award: To Clemson coach Dabo Swinney, who in his debut as Tigers interim coach vs. Georgia Tech Oct. 18, bellowed at his team, "They're favored on our field. That's disgraceful!'' as ESPN cameras rolled. Then Clemson went out and lost, 21-17, mostly because a dumb trick play resulted in an interception return for a touchdown.
Yet it all worked out for Swinney (given name of William), as the Tigers' 4-1 finish earned Dabo a five-year contract Monday.
-- "You NCAA guys claim academics is important'' award: To Texas Tech coach Mike Leach for suggesting that the Big 12 solve the three-way South Division tie among the Red Raiders, Oklahoma and Texas by which school has the best football graduation rate. Now, of course Texas Tech leads the Big 12 in that category at 79 percent with Texas 11th at 50 percent and Oklahoma last at 46 percent.
One of our favorites, the free-thinking Leach once again shows the hypocrisy of NCAA when it comes to actually graduating players. Then again, if head-to-head games are meaningless, who cares about diplomas?
-- "Woody and Bo are spinning in their graves'' award: To last weekend's offensive displays including Oregon 65, Oregon State 38, Oklahoma 61, Oklahoma State 41 and Georgia Tech 45, Georgia 41. No doubt the late coaches Hayes and Schembechler, who combined for 399 wins at Ohio State and Michigan from 1951-89, would be wondering what happened to today's top defenses.
Consider that in the Buckeyes-Wolverines' epic battles from 1970-78 when both were ranked every season, the two combined for total of 207 points scored -- or two more than Oregon-Oregon State and Oklahoma-Oklahoma State. Tackling anyone?
"Damn the timeouts, dead red ahead'' award: To USC coach Pete Carroll, who's latest quirk is to forfeit a pair of timeouts each half of Saturday's game at UCLA so his Trojans can wear their beloved home red jerseys, something they haven't done at UCLA since 1982.
-- "Maybe that clause wasn't such a good idea'' award: To outgoing Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer. Lost in Fulmer's farewell Saturday night (complete with a postgame interview from reigning ESPN goddess Erin Andrews), is that a clause in his ill-fated contract extension played a role in his ultimate demise.
In his six-year extension signed last January, Fulmer's contract was guaranteed to roll over each season Tennessee won eight games -- hardly demanding in today's 12-game regular season and plentiful bowl system. Theoretically, all Fulmer would need to do is win eight games every other year and his contract (and $6-million buyout) would be guaranteed as long as he wanted.
As Fulmer insisted throughout this year's 5-7 disaster that "we could have turned this around next year if given a chance,'' maybe UT's honchos wanted no part of Fulmer going 8-5 with a Liberty Bowl win next year and earning $3 million annually without ever really accomplishing anything on a national scope. Lane Kiffin, who replaced Fulmer, has no such rollover clause.
UPSET PICK: Georgia Tech nudged us closer to respectability at 6-8. And it's rare a No. 1 team is a 9-point underdog, so let's go with Alabama to dump No. 4 Florida Saturday in the SEC Championship Game.
LINDSAY'S LOSER: Hey SMU fans, how's that $10-million deal for coach June Jones working out? Not so good with the Mustangs finishing 1-11 for the second straight season. The Ponies' awful defense (116th nationally in scoring at 38.6 ppg) is hardly Jones' fault. But SMU ranking 93rd in scoring offense (21.3 ppg, seven less than last year)? That one is on Jones.
(E-mail John Lindsay at lindsayj(at)shns.com. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
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