Closing The Book On Another College Football Season

From the start of spring football right until the clock hit double-zero in the BCS championship game, this season has been full of headlines. Some were good; most were not. Here's what I'll remember from this year's installment of college football.


6. Kickers need to relearn how to kick - It's been a while since so many chipshots of extreme magnitude have sailed wide of the uprights.


5. As good as Andrew Luck might be in the NFL, his last season at Stanford was something of a disappointment - Luck put up some very impressive numbers this season, throwing for 3,517 yards, 37 TDs, and 10 INTs. But Luck's final college season is better characterized as one where he 1) lost the big games and 2) sported an exceptionally repugnant beard.


4. College football has missed USC, will miss Ohio St, and welcomes back Michigan - I hate the Trojans just as much as the next guy, but there's no use loathing USC if their seasons are wholly irrelevant. The Pac12 was deprived of what could have been a great championship game in lieu of a much less exciting Oregon vs. UCLA contest. Along those lines, keeping Ohio St. out of the post season will hurt the viability of the Big Ten. On the other side of things, it's good to see the Wolverines back in the headlines for winning.


3. Honey Badger is a stupid nickname - Please stop using it. I'm talking to you, Brent Musburger.


2. The Penn St. scandal was the most upsetting news to ever hit college football - For the school, the victims, and anyone else involved, this situation has been nothing less than devastating. The magnitude was enormous; the consequences are grave. Sadly, it's far from over; when the trial begins, the media circus is sure to resume.


1. 2012 will be even more scandal-ridden than 2011 was - No so much in magnitude, but certainly in number. The NCAA practices an exclusively reactionary policy: allow rules to be broken, then punish whoever is still around after the fact. This isn't going to change anytime soon. What we learned this year is that college football has many more situations that demand a reaction, which *hopefully* will eventually mean prevention altogether.