When looking back at the 2010 NCAA Football season, what will we remember it for?

Will it be a match-up of undefeated teams in Auburn and Oregon in the BCS National Championship Game?  Could it even be the performances of eventual Heisman Trophy Cam Newton in one of the more memorable individual campaigns of all-time?

I’m sure all of that and many other things are memorable and there’s still under two weeks for teams and individuals to create future memories.

However, when this one is all said and done, the immediate lasting image of this season will be one of scandal and controversy.

Just as big as anything that has happened on the field have been some of the stories off the field that have had some of the biggest names in the game in the news.

It all started with Georgia’s A.J. Green, who was suspended for four games at the beginning of the season for selling a jersey he wore in the Independence Bowl for under $1,000 to a guy that constituted as an agent.

Next it was former USC star Reggie Bush being stripped of his Heisman Trophy.

How could we forget the two-month saga involving Newton where his own father elected to pimp his son out to the higher bidder.  Excuse me, I forgot to include the word “allegedly” in that last statement.

Now this past week, news has come down that five Ohio St. Buckeyes, including Terelle Pryor, have been suspended for the first five games of the 2011 season for selling memorabilia amounting to a total of around $2,000.

The only certain thing is that the NCAA is one of the worst run business’ in America.  The NCAA has also done the impossible this season. They’ve actually gotten more negative press in four months then Lindsay Lohan has had relapses.  The institution of the NCAA has turned itself into a complete joke, if it wasn’t there already.

Photo Courtesy of cnnsi.com

The Orlando Magic went up against the Miami Heat on Friday night, in what was another highly anticipated matchup early in this NBA season.  At the end of the first half, the game was living up to the hype as the Heat were ahead by only six points.  The Magic had the lead a few times in the first half as the teams sparred back and forth, but the start of the second half saw the Heat break the game open.  The Magic went cold from the field, and the Heat ended up with a 20+ point blowout over one of the best teams in the Eastern conference.    I guess no one should really be surprised as the Magic have some well-known flaws, and Vince Carter left the game in the first half with back spasms.  It remains to be seen how this is going to make the NBA better, to have a handful of good teams that are clearly better than the other teams makes for a boring league.  We will see how all of this plays out, but the NBA season just seems a bit boring at this point.

The Oregon Ducks have overtaken the Auburn Tigers in the latest BCS standings after they put up a dominating performance against the USC Trojans.  The Auburn Tigers blew out the Ole Miss Rebels, who were not as highly regarded as USC in the strength of schedule.  This adds to the drama that is college football, but the interesting part of this is the fact that Alabama has crept up to the sixth spot in the BCS.    The Crimson Tide are sitting right behind Utah, who plays TCU next week which will knock one of them from the ranks of the undefeated.  This will allow Alabama to move up at least one spot provided that they win next week, so the Tide are not out of the National Championship conversation just yet.

The San Francisco Giants have taken a 3 – 1 lead over the Texas Rangers in the World Series after shutting them out 4 – 0 in game four.  Madison Bumgarner pitched a gem as he shut down the Rangers power hitting lineup for eight innings in their ball park, which was unexpected.  The Rangers now have their backs to the wall, and will have to rely on their ace Cliff Lee to get them a game five victory if they want to extend the series another game.  We had the Rangers winning this series in six games, but the Giants are the team that have come up with the clutch moments to take a commanding series lead.  Will Tim Lincecum be able to clinch a World Series title for the Giants in game five?

Brett Favre started his 292 consecutive game in the NFL when the Minnesota Vikings took on the New England Patriots despite Favre having two stress fractures in his ankle.   The Patriots beat the Vikings, and Favre did not finish the game because he was knocked out with a severe chin laceration that required about 10 stitches.  You can say this for Favre, with all the things he is going through with the Sterger situation, horrible season, and a slew of injuries he keeps getting back up for more.  He does seem like the ultimate Ironman, and even though this season has not gone well for him no one can say he did not leave it all on the field.

The New Orleans Saints showed that they are still the defending super bowl champs by beating the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday Night Football.  With all of the sports analysts and experts saying that the Pittsburgh Steelers were the best team in the NFL, the Saints played like they had a chip on their shoulder and had Ben Roethlisberger running for his life all night.  The Saints schedule sets up well going forward, and they will be favored in their next four or five games, so it seems that they are poised to go on a run.

The NCAA banned college coaches from text-messaging recruit back in 2007 because of the potential cost to a student athlete who did not have an unlimited text messaging plan.  This has become a growing problem because the NCAA was asleep at the switch when text messaging became a primary means of communication in this country.  The Miami Hurricanes have self reported several texting infractions in several sports, Football, Track, and possibly baseball.

Personally the fact that a team can be put on probation for text messaging is fairly dumb; these kids should not be communicating with coaches directly in the first place.  This is no different than a player giving his cell phone number to a girl that is pursuing him and she texts him until he is out of messages, he gave her the number so it is his responsibility to tell her to stop.  In most of these cases the parents of the recruit are paying for the phone anyway, so why would the parents not pick up the phone and say “coach Shannon the text messages need to stop we can’t afford them anymore.”

It should stop right there Randy Shannon like any other coach does not want to piss of a potential recruits parents, instead though the NCAA makes a monolithic rule with unrealistic expectations.  What if the recruit initiates contact with the coach via text message is it permissible then?  What if the recruit has an unlimited texting plan, and prefers the text communication over talking on the phone?  When you make a blanket rule it leaves almost no flexibility for those who do want to take advantage of the technology.

I am sure Ohio State and Florida fans are waiting for the opportunity to jump on this topic, especially Florida with their $100k scandal several months ago.  This is a non issue; yes there were a few teams who landed on probation for text messaging, and another team gave up one scholarship and reduced a few campus visits.  In the end it’s all one big smoke screen the NCAA does not have a handle on anything these days, and they know their only weapon is making examples out of big time programs and hope that everyone else falls in line.  That is why there are so many schools self reporting violations now, almost every day you see another school mentioned.  When the NCAA put the screws to USC it put every other school in panic mode.

Miami still has hardly had any players arrested under Randy Shannon, and if Florida, or any other school’s fans want to compare “transgressions” over the last four years then that’s a challenge we can take.  I saw another ignorant comment from a Florida fan on the article,

“Funny. Reading UM fans’ posts on here through the last couple of years one would think that Randy Shannon’s program is the cleanest in all of college football.

Go figure.”:

Is he serious?  “Text messaging” is considered dirty?  I am sorry last time I checked $100k was not being sent over text to prospective or current players.  This is the dumb game schools have to play with the NCAA, this is just another example of the bigger problem in college football.  That is a different article for another day.  Back to the NCAA’s verbiage on this rule, “The NCAA website notes that “evolving technology presents unique challenges in recruiting. . . . Schools cannot text prospective student-athletes at any time, but they can e-mail during permissible contact periods. Schools can do so even from social media platforms such as Facebook. . . . All other electronically transmitted correspondence including, but not limited to, text messaging, Instant Messenger, chat rooms or message boards [e.g. a user's wall] within a social networking Web site or through other services or applications remain impermissible. . . . Tweeting is permissible as long as coaches are not using it to contact individual prospective student-athletes and are abiding by the standard recruiting rules.” (www.miamiherald.com)

That is the one of the vaguest explanations of a rule I have ever read in my life.  They say emailing even through Facebook is okay, but posting on the athletes Facebook wall is not okay?  That makes absolutely no sense at all, if the NCAA had a clue they would realize that many people have smart phones and emails to their Facebook or email accounts show up on their phones.  Theoretically this is texting, and tweeting is okay as long as they do not contact the student athlete.

Okay, so I am Joe coach I setup a Twitter account, and I ask Rob Blue Chip to follow me on Twitter.  He sets up his smart phone to receive Tweets as text messages, and once he follows me I Tweet “boy Rob Blue Chip would look great in a Hurricanes uniform”.  This message was posted to my Twitter account, and since the recruit is following me he gets a TEXT on his phone.

I can sit here and shoot holes in the NCAA’s texting rule all day, but I won’t.  As for the Miami Hurricanes they know that the NCAA and other schools would love to see them get in trouble.  People feel that Miami is making a comeback, and another set of violations could set the program back several years.  That is not going to happen these are mostly considered secondary violations unless they sent thousands of text messages to prospective recruits, which does not seem to be the case.  This only made news because it was Miami, no money exchanged hands and no bounties were paid the Hurricanes will self impose new policies and the NCAA will be pacified enough to leave them alone.  If the Hurricanes do slip up and get caught texting recruits again, then they may not be able to put off the NCAA next time.  The school has imposed tougher internal polices although it has not been disclosed exactly what those are.

The 25 most hated teams in sports list was recently released.  Many I agreed with and some I did not understand why they were even on the list, then I came to the team ranked at #11 which was the 1990 University of Miami Football team. I obviously was not surprised that Miami was on the list because that is all you ever hear from people who THINK they know about college football.

Here is an excerpt of what was written about the 11th most hated team of all time in reference to their Cotton Bowl appearance.

“Seldom has a team been so undisciplined … and unstoppable. Miami had a Cotton Bowl record 132 yards in penalties. At halftime the ‘Canes finished with 202 yards in penalties, a bowl record that still stands. They also won 46-3. “If they aren’t the best,” ‘Horns coach David McWilliams said: “I don’t want to play the best.” — Austin Murphy (www.cnnsi.com )

I thought that was interesting that it seemed their entire basis for being ranked the 11th most hated team of all time was based on one game, a woodshed beating of the Texas Longhorns.

So I noted that and continued to scroll up the list wondering what teams were in the top ten. I look through the teams and I am passing the 2007 New England Patriots at the sixths spot (can’t argue with that one), the 1988-89 Detroit Pistons at the number two spot.

Then I get a look at who is picked as the MOST hated team of all time, and it is the 1986 Miami Hurricanes football team. Here is the entire passage that was written, so you can see their reasoning for ranking the Hurricanes in the top spot.

“His players were visionaries, early practitioners of an in-your-face brand of football that went out of its way to belittle and intimidate opponents. It was, in a lot of ways, the opposite of sportsmanship. It was a ‘Cane thing. To say that Jimmy Johnson (pictured, left, with Michael Irvin) gave his players free reign was an understatement.

The ’86 Hurricanes were caught up in “fights and fraud and alleged shoplifting and other unsavory shenanigans involving more than 40 players,” wrote SI ‘s Rick Reilly. “Miami may be the only squad in America that has its team picture taken from the front and from the side.”

It was also flat-out loaded, an NFL developmental squad, and not inclined toward modesty. The top-ranked ‘Canes showed up in Tempe, Ariz., for the national title game rocking military fatigues, in stark contrast to the coats and ties sported by the charges of “St. Joe ” Paterno, as Johnson dubbed his counterpart. In that famed Fiesta Bowl game, Heisman Trophy winner

Vinny Testaverde threw five picks and Miami turned the ball over seven times in a 14-10 Penn State upset that made a lot of people across the republic very, very happy.” — Austin Murphy (www.cnnsi.com)

First let’s point out the obvious Miami was the ONLY team to make this list twice, the Pistons, Yankees, and Chicago Black Sox were all on there even the 2005 USC Trojans.  None of them made this list more than once. The other constant with that list is that most of the teams on that list were very successful, or champions in their respective sports. What this says is that people don’t hate the Hurricanes just because of their Bravado; they hate the Hurricanes because they win championships with a chip on their shoulder.

If you look at the majority of the teams on that list the Pistons were known as the Bad Boys, even the Jimmy Johnson led 1992 Dallas Cowboys were on there. If you look at it all of these teams were highly successful, and people hated them because they won without being nice guys.

They went on the field and looked at the team across from them as an opponent not a group of friends who they were going to hang out with after the game.  Those Miami Hurricanes teams played football the way it should be played, with heart, emotion, and a general dislike of the team they are playing.

People always bring up all the “off the field” stories about those Miami teams, but what they do not talk about is hardly any of those players ever missed a game on Saturday because of an off field issue.  If Miami players were committing as many crimes blatantly as all the rumors say they would have surely been caught multiple times over a four year period.

The players at Miami just feed that stigma and over exaggerate all of it because they are proud that people were against them, and the succeeded despite people objections. Thinks of the genius in all of this, teams from 1986 and 1990 were so polarizing that they shaped the perception of an entire football program.

The perception remains today even though Miami has hardly had any players arrested over the past five seasons, which just proves all of the media hate is based off of personal bias more than fact.  Were those Miami teams in your face, cocky, and intense? You bet they were.

But Michael Jordan was just as bad, and if you believe the stories he was even worse and not one Chicago Bulls team made this list. Jordan is loved by millions, and he played the game of basketball much the same way as the Miami Hurricanes played football, but he gets nowhere near the same level of hate.

There was also a section talking about teams that barely missed the cut for making the top 25 most hated list, and the 2002 Ohio State Buckeyes were listed.  There were appropriately named “The Luckeyes” for that good fortune filled season they experienced which can only be described as something of a dream.  Well at least in South Florida the Gators and Buckeyes are fighting for the top spot of most hated team by Miami Hurricanes fans, maybe it will be a tie for first!