NCAA Football Wrap-Up

So about the national championship game last night...Wait, was there even a national championship game last night? And if so, Who cares?!

Yes, that's right, the fools in charge of the NCAA had the brilliant brainstorm to wait until one day after the wildcard round of the playoffs in the NFL to hold their title game this season. Did you know anyone who was really looking forward to seeing this game last night? Me neither. I'm much more interested in football, college basketball, hot stove baseball or basically almost anything else more than the national BCS championship game, and it seems that millions of others out there are just like me. Nowadays, it feels like every sport is just pushing its championship later and later and later, extending their season longer and longer and longer, all ultimately in the chase for the almighty dollar, and I have to admit it's nice to see these decisions backfire on the sports once in a while. Concluding the NBA Finals when everyone is away at the beach for the Independence Day holiday? Check. Playing the World Series in a November snowstorm in the Northeast? Awesome. And now delaying the NCAA national championship game so long this year that everybody even forgets that college football is still going on anymore? You betcha!

And I would be remiss if I did not mention here the other big story with the 2010-2011 college football season. Just a couple of months after embarrassingly having to vacate the Heisman Trophy award won some years ago by Reggie Bush after he violated every rule in the book back in his USC days, the league recently awarded its Heisman Trophy for this year to Auburn quarterback Cam Newton, who not only likely did accept money to attend Auburn over another NCAA school, but whose father publicly broadcasted before the fact that his son would be attending school at whichever institution paid him the most money. Sure, sure, nothing has been proven. Yet. But of course it will be. You think something like this, an explicit and public violation of every rule in the NCAA recruiting rulebook, won't have someone come out and talk about it once the furor from this season has died down? Don't be naive. The NCAA and the Heisman people might have been able to buy that silence for a couple of months here just long enough to award the trophy to the cheating dickhead and then watch him win the national title -- which is exactly what the Heisman people would love to see happen every single year if they could choose it -- but to think that the truth won't come out about just how guilty the Newtons are in all of this is the silliest thing I've ever heard.

The Heisman Trophy is officially dead. The voters, the committee, they had their chance this year to do the right thing. But instead, they decided to chase the money and the glory of crowning the kid who is obviously the best player in the country, the kid who was obviously on his way to winning Auburn its first national title in 53 years -- a feat which he completed on Monday night -- and the kid who pretty clearly has the skills and the raw materials go on to great things an an NFL quarterback. And even worse, the NCAA allowing Cam Newton to retain his eligibility a couple of months back on the excuse that it was allegedly his father who trumpeted this "play-for-pay" scheme before Newton opted to enroll at Auburn, and not the player himself? Congratulations, NCAA, you just created the widest, most obvious and totally foreseeable loophole in the history of collegiate sports, and it's one that you're now going to be struggling with for many, many years to come.

"I didn't do it! It was my mom who sent that solicitation for illegal benefits!"

"Hey, don't blame me. My agent's the one who demanded that money. I had no idea!"

"Well, I'm not the one who tried to throw that game. It was that booster who offered me the money."

Sheer brilliance. I give it less than a year, and Cam Newton's Heisman Trophy will be vacated just like Reggie Bush's was earlier in 2010.