College Football End-Of-Year Review

TokenSportsGuys10 years ago

Has anyone counted how many days we have until the next college football season starts? Christ, basketball season is going to be tough for us Mizzou fans. A coworker of mine who is a Kentucky alum spotted me twenty-four points in Tuesday night’s Tiger throttle. He would have still covered if he’d spotted me an additional twenty-four points. Let’s get back to football, because this was one of the craziest college football seasons in recent recollection.

Playoff Execution: A+

If it weren’t for the inaugural College Football Playoff format, Nick Saban would most likely be celebrating his fourth national championship in seven years and the nation wouldn’t have been introduced to the stable of quarterbacks that the Buckeyes have at their disposal.

Biggest Winners: Ohio State (Obviously), The Big Ten, And Everyone Who Hates The SEC

We aren’t going to continue beating the “SEC versus the world!!!!” dead horse, but anyone outside of the conference probably got a half-chub while watching Big Ten Urban knock Satan Saban and the Tide (as well as the conference) out of the national championship hunt.

Michigan picked up its dream coach, Jim Harbaugh, who will all but certainly have his team competing for national championship talks within the next few years. The showdown between Urban (OSU) and Jim (UM) on November 28th will reignite one of the best college football rivalries — I can guarantee that’s a game you won’t want to miss.

Speaking of Urban, how great and lucky of a coach is he? Love him or hate him, this son of a bitch is a winner. How do you end up with three eligible quarterbacks that could start at any other school in the nation? Realistically, Braxton, J.T., and Cardale should all be on the top of the 2015 Heisman watch list if Ohio State could play all three (which it cannot). Add Zeke Elliot into that conversation as well. We could see THE Ohio State getting back into the dynasty days in a hurry.

(Side Note: To anyone who read our preseason CFB article — yeah, we know. We ripped OSU and its conference worse than the fart you held back when you hung out with that perfect ten for the first time. We fucked up, and since it doesn’t happen often, we don’t mind admitting it.)

Biggest Losers: The SEC West, FSU, And BYU

SEC West, what the hell happened in December? As a whole, the SEC did fine while going bowling, but the SEC West? Shitting the bed is an understatement. Shitting in your own bed, no matter your mental state, would somehow be a bit more respectable than the sum of the SEC West’s bowl performances. We’re just calling it how we see it. The SEC West went 2-5 after being a perfect 28-0 against non-conference opponents. It was just embarrassing. All you can do is shake your head. Either that or laugh hysterically while you troll your friends from the south, all with good reason.

Florida State was a joke all season. We almost wish Florida State would have (rightfully) lost to Notre Dame on October 18th to kill the hype sooner rather than later. However, the FSU meltdown against the Ducks, with the entire nation watching, was the gratifying ending that the baby Redskins deserved. How many times can you dodge a bullet and continue being that damn cocky? The answer is until you find an opponent that can actually hit a fucking target; it just so happened to come in the form of Marcus Mariota and an opportunistic defense.

Semi-kudos to us on the Jameis preseason forecast. Winston’s off-field shenanigans seemed to get highlighted on ESPN more than his actual on-field performance this season. I guess this was all in good reason. Jameis’s play brought him back down to earth this year while he played closer to the level of a mortal human. He even managed to get himself suspended for a game, helping us cover our imaginary prop bet. That had to be a preseason prop bet in Vegas, right?

The Cougars were on pace to finish their 2014-15 season undefeated until quarterback Tyson Hill suffered a season-ending knee injury. Granted, BYU would have made a case to break into the playoffs, which would have ruined a great start to the tournament-style college football postseason. The Cougars had defeated the toughest part of their schedule and planned to go on cruise control, but the Mormons seemed to lose all starting eleven on both sides of the ball the play after Hill’s knee came up looking like spaghetti.

Offensive Player Of The Year: Marcus Mariota

Mariota is an obvious nod for the nation’s best player, even though he looked like a bitch in the national championship. He looked scared, uncomfortable, and confused for a majority of the contest. Although the Ducks were plagued with early drops that would have inevitably changed the outcome of the game, we expected Super Mario to keep his composition for himself and his teammates. All critiques aside, Mariota had an incredible season, even by NCAA 2015 standards. Mariota threw for more than 4,000 yards and forty-two touchdowns while only throwing four interceptions. Four. He also ran in sixteen more.

Defensive Player Of The Year: Shane Ray

The Missouri Tigers rounded out the season with eleven wins and only three losses, playing in their second SEC Championship game, no thanks to the offense. The SEC Defensive Player of the Year, Shane Ray, accounted for sixty-five total tackles, twenty-two and a half of them being tackles for a loss. He also had thirteen sacks. Ray broke the team sack record, which is saying something when you think that all-rookie Kony Ealy, SEC Defensive Player of the Year Michael Sam, NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year Sheldon Richardson, quarterback killer Aldon Smith, and big country Justin Smith all attended the school. The tandem of Ray and Markus Golden was the most dynamic set of ends in the nation. If you’re a top defensive lineman in high school, why wouldn’t you go to the University of Missouri?

Betting Totals: 79-59-1

Vegas handicappers aim to go about 57 percent (we ended at 59 percent) and although we weren’t betting on every game like most of them do, our results weren’t bad. We never got down and should have been up more if my hatred toward Kansas and my love for the underdog (SMU) hadn’t clouded our judgment. We ended up with more than a grand in winnings: $1,350 and $1,450. We did, however, sit out of bowl game gambling. If we hadn’t have made that executive decision, we would probably both be down at least a grand.

This was one hell of a football season, folks. I don’t think the fans could have asked for a better way to kick off the CFB playoff system.

Looking Forward To Next Season:

Alabama may have collected its best recruiting class of all time. Ohio State, TCU, Alabama, Baylor, Michigan State, Auburn, and Ole Miss will be teams to watch in 2015. Michigan will begin making a resurgence in the Big Ten, and Dak Prescott will be back for Mississippi State. There’s a lot to look forward to for the 2015 season.

Although we can’t wait for August, we’re sure that the offseason will provide plenty of incredibly stupid stories that we can’t wait to cover..

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