It’s time to mock an entire regular season’s worth of ridiculousness before we move on to mocking the bowl season. Oh, and compared to last year, the season just isn’t nearly as mockable, mostly because it wasn’t nearly as batbleep crazy as the typical three-month sprint that is the college football season.
Still, we have a repeat champion, thanks to the same program that publicly agonized over dumping its coach at the end of last year finally getting around to doing it a few games into this one while also ceding back-to-back road games to a rival and hiring a guy who could count his previous SEC win total on one hand.
Thanks for reading this hot mess for whatever portion of the year you’ve read it. Please feel free to check back soon for whatever bonus messiness appears here during the offseason. Here’s hoping your team wins its bowl game – y’know, unless it’s playing…never mind.
- LSU – A chaotic repeat? Suhweet! And now, here’s to a possible threepeat. Eaux the places the Tigers will go next year even without their Hat. At some point, you have to assume that the chaos comes from a place other than the coach’s office, and we’ve reached that point, so feel free to spend a tiny piece of your offseason wondering how the nice people of B.R. will react the first time Ed’s crew loses a game they should win, and given his track record in Oxford, the over/under on how many times that happens is…what? Three or four?
- Lane Kiffin – Speaking of LSU, Is it just us, or did a dude who spent three years quietly rebuilding his reputation and getting to the place where he was ready for another high-profile HC gig just blow all that work up in about a week? A little career advice, Lane: making a lateral move and competing with the ‘Bama Death Star in your division would be, uh, counterproductive. (Late Add-On: Taking that gig while getting kicked off the island right before the national championship game after a very public hissy fit about the coach who helped you rebuild your career was also counterproductive, as you’re about to find out. Welcome back, Lane!!! Here’s hoping you don’t need another last chance.)
- Indiana – Congrats to the Hoosiers on going full Illinois in just one week. Who says you can’t rocket from nowhere (almost) to the top in one week? Ever see the movie Dave? To paraphrase, “We’re growing. We’re growing…and we’re stopping.”
- Rutgers – How is it possible that a team that lost four games by a cumulative 224-0 could have only lost by a little over three touchdowns per game? Truly, Knights, you’ve been worse than the final score would indicate…at least in eight of your games.
- SEC East – In case it wasn’t clear before that entirely predictable beatdown that the Tide laid on THE FIRST COACH TO WIN AN SEC DIVISION TITLE IN EACH OF HIS FIRST TWO YEARS, “America’s Toughest Conference” is really half a conference. But hey, UT and UGA will make their long-promised comebacks one of these years. Probably.
- Texas – How was that for a rollercoaster ride? One week, Charlie saved his job, and the next he was losing to Kansas for the first time since FDR’s second term. Here’s what we don’t get: the rumors about where he’d go next started about ten seconds after he was done wearing burnt orange. USF is (rightly) thrilled to have him. Does that give you the impression the problem in Austin is a little higher up than previously believed?
- Baylor – You know you’re not the prettiest girl in the dance hall when Jim Grobe turns you down after three years of single life. Still, Matt Rhule was a pretty good hire, all things considered, y’know, give or take the fact that he has no ties to Texas. That’s not a big deal when it comes to recruiting, is it?
- Oregon – And so ends a lengthy streak of keeping matters in the Oregon family, which is what happens when you go from west coast dynasty to last place and losing to your rival for the first time since Senator Obama was looking like an underdog in his presidential campaign. Presumably, Willie Taggart won’t go looking to Cal Poly for his next quarterback.
- The #FunBelt – Lessee: a positioning statement/hashtag that’s derivative of #MACtion, maybe three programs that don’t belong in FCS, and a coming college football revolution mean…what? (Hint: your answer should include the word “irrelevant”.)
- Texas Tech – Kliff Kingsbury is still there? Doncha think it’s time to give [pick one from B.J. Symons, Graham Harrell, Seth Doege, Taylor Potts, or Davis Webb] a chance? Or, y’all could just apologize to The Pirate.
- UCLA – From darkhorse national contender to blowing up the offensive staff after going 4-8 and playing a former walk-on QB for half the year is the sort of thing that takes you from #BruinRevolution to #OurCoachIsRevolting in record time, so congrats on the amazing team speed, Bruins!
- Tennessee – Remember when this was the year the Vols would finally return to glory? Well, they kinda did – they ended the streak and beat a couple other ranked teams. They’d appreciate it if you’d kindly ignore the lame non-conference schedule (yes, besides VaTech), and those losses to South Carolina and Vandy. Also, a polite guest wouldn’t say anything about their inability to develop a seemingly talented QB. Expect UT to climb the chaos polls in 2017.
- Cincinnati – The Bearkats quietly crashed below the radar for most of the year until that paragon of class, Tommy T, made it screamingly clear that a program that had been rolling for years had rolled off a cliff. The new sheriff in Cincy is definitely a class act, but considering his one year of HC experience involved a disaster with the same talent that The Senator and Pope Urban led to glory shouldn’t exactly inspire confidence.
- The State Of Arizona – The good ship DickRod has hit a reef…again. This time, it looks like it just might capsize. (#FunBelt, here he comes!) And yet, his Cats still torpedoed the remnants of Paul Graham’s trainwreck from Tempe. A collective 3-15 in a painfully mediocre Pac-12 – and mediocre may be considered a compliment when ‘Bama gets done with the conference champion on New Year’s Eve – gives you the impression the whole state will bypass California and just fall into the ocean.
- Notre Dame – This pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?
- Georgia – What did we say? Did we tell you that capping a coach who’s doing pretty well because he’s not Nick Saban is asking for trouble? Okay, so Kirby’s first year wasn’t awful, but it sure as hell wasn’t an improvement, and precisely what hope do y’all see that the rest of us don’t, Dawgs? (We fully expect to say more or less the same thing about LSU in 12 months.)
- Kansas – How ’bout that Texas win? When it comes to the rest of the schedule, please continue to avert your eyes.
- Boring College – Please tell the world that wins over programs like Wagner and the poopstorm that is UConn do not mean you’re keeping the Baron of Boring in Boston for another year. You are? Seriously?
- Connecticut – Speaking of UConn, remember when the motto in Storrs was BIA (as in Best In America defense)? Finishing by giving up 68 to BC and Tulane pretty much put the fail nail in that coffin.
- Illinois – Yep, Lovie Smith sure was a major improvement over Bill Cubit.
- Bonus Ranker: Whoever Hires Hat – Come back, Les. We miss you, and the game isn’t nearly as fun – or unpredictably wacky – without you!
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