CFN 2010 Tournament of Tumult
Bracket No. 3
Tournament of Tumult Brackets
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Looping
Throwing Motion Bracket
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Being Fortunate Enough To Spend Five or 20 Minutes Bracket
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Wonderlic 22 Score Bracket
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Circumcising Filipino Boys Bracket
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1st Round Results
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2nd Round Results
By
Pete Fiutak
Wonderlic Score 22
Bracket
1. 2001 Nebraska
Of all the wild and wacky BCS arguments over the years, the 2001 kerfuffle created the most philosophical debate. Nebraska had moved its way to No. 1 after beating defending national champion Oklahoma, and it was rolling with an 11-0 record and seemingly on its way to the Rose Bowl and the national championship game. And then came a wild Friday afternoon road trip to Colorado.
Colorado RB Chris Brown ran for a school-record six touchdowns and the Buffs finished with eight 376 rushing yards and eight rushing scores against a defense that was considered to be a brick wall. Down 42-23 at halftime, Nebraska came out roaring for the second half before a Dahrran Diedrick fumble on the one. Nebraska got it to 42-30, but the Buffs went on another crunching drive culminating with a one-yard Brown touchdown run. Colorado went on to the Big 12 title game, and then the fun really began.
Nebraska fell to fourth in the BCS rankings after the loss with Miami moving to first, Florida second, and Texas third. The Gators had a spot in the national title there for the taking but lost at home to Tennessee despite being an 18-point favorite. Tennessee gagged away its chance to play for the title in a loss to LSU in the SEC Championship, to open the door for the Longhorns, but Chris Simms couldn’t stop giving the ball to the Buffs in a Big 12 Championship loss. So by not playing anyone, the Huskers moved up to No. 2 in the final BCS rankings. So despite not winning its own division, much less its conference title, and even after finishing fourth in the human polls, and Oregon finished second and Colorado third, Nebraska ended up playing Miami for the title. The result wasn’t pretty with the Canes winning easily 37-14.
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16. 2001 Miami as the Greatest of All-Time
How loaded were the 2001 Miami Hurricanes? 11 players were taken in the following NFL draft including five in the first round (highlighted by Ed Reed) and Clinton Portis was taken in the second. Over the following three years, 28 Hurricanes were drafted with 15 going in the first round. The 2001 Canes finished the season with a 12-0 record and a 22-game winning streak on the way to a 34-game run before losing to Ohio State in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl. Was the national title team the greatest of all-time? It’s been a running debate and a case could be made, but those Canes didn’t play the toughest of schedules missing out on all the SEC teams, Colorado, and Oregon, and it needed a big play to get by Virginia Tech 26-24 to keep the dream alive.
8. John L. Smith, 2002 GMAC Bowl
It was arguably the strangest job announcement in college football history. Smith had done a great job at Louisville, but he was having a mediocre 2002 season going 7-5 with a trip to the GMAC Bowl. A hot coaching prospect, Smith had secretly agreed to take the job opening at Michigan State before the bowl game against Marshall, but word leaked out at halftime that he was gone and the team never played right or focused as a limping Byron Leftwich led the way to a 38-15 Herd win.
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9. John L. Smith Halftime Rant vs. Ohio State, 2005
Michigan State started off the season 4-0 before losing a 34-31 heartripper to arch-rival Michigan and had rebounded to battle Ohio State in a strong first half. The Spartans lost 35-24 with the key play happening at the end of the first half when the Spartans scrambled to line up for a field goal as time was running out, never got set, and got the kick blocked and returned for a 72-yard touchdown by Ashton Youboty. Smith went ballistic on Jack Arute
walking off the field going into halftime after
throwing his head set on the sideline and yelling at
his assistants. Screaming as he was going into the
locker room, he came up with the classic, “That’s a
damn coaching mistake. The kids are playing their
tail off, and the coaches are screwing it up.”
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The Smith Halftime Scream on YouTube
5. Tim Tebow’s “Promise” Speech
September 27, 2008. A day that will live in Florida infamy. The loaded Gators had outplayed Ole Miss but blew a few big chances, Tim Tebow missed a few wide open receivers, and they lost 31-30 which led to “The Promise” with Tebow
vowing that “a lot of good will come out of this”
and that “you will never see a team play harder than
we will the rest of the season.” Part myth, part
legend, part schmaltz, this became the galvanizing
moment for the Florida national championship season
as the team ripped off ten straight wins for the
title. It was immortalized on a plaque put on the
football building.
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The Tebow Speech on YouTube
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12. Jake Locker’s “Celebration” vs. BYU
Possibly the most interesting mix of reader reactions ever came after this controversy. Washington QB Jake Locker had answered a BYU score with a great late drive, culminating with his three-yard touchdown run with two seconds left to pull the Huskies within one. In his excitement, he threw the ball over his head and got flagged with a questionable celebration penalty which moved the extra point attempt back, which wouldn’t have been that big a deal except BYU blocked the 35-yard attempt and sealed the win. The arguments came in from several levels. 1) It was sort of a chickenspit celebration call that should’ve been let go in an emotional moment; Locker wasn’t taunting BYU in any way and the football throw was spontaneous. 2) Yes, by the strictest letter of the law, it was a penalty. 3) Washington still could’ve sent the game into overtime had it blocked BYU’s defensive front on the extra point attempt, and if the attempt was good, the Locker situation would’ve never been heard from again. The reaction turned into a battle between the strict disciplinarians against those who want to see college football lighten up. Washington went completely into the tank in an 0-12 season, while BYU finished 10-3.
4. Big Ten Expansion
The ACC taking away teams from the Big East was a big story and a big deal, but that was nothing compared to the Big Ten’s addition of Penn State in 1993 to provide a major upgrade to the conference, and the storylines haven’t stopped from there. Forgetting that the Big Ten is supposed to be a collection of some of the world’s greatest academic institutions but can’t count the number of schools in its conference, having Penn State has been a plus and it has fueled never-ending speculation that the league will find a way to bring aboard Notre Dame. That marriage hasn’t been able to come together, and now the Big Ten bigwigs are looking to shake up the world by floating the idea of adding Texas, even if there was nothing to it, while holding a wild-card out there with their whims. Do they want Rutgers? Pitt? Missouri? Syracuse? This isn’t going to go away, and whatever the Big Ten does will cause a ripple effect.
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13. “Joe Must Go”
Joe Paterno deserves to be in the discussion of the greatest head football coaches of all-time. Not only has he become the winningest head man at the highest of levels, but he’s been a class act, done has been great for the academic side of Penn State, and was able to survive an ugly stretch that would’ve forced out anyone other than a living legend. After going 10-13 in 2000 and 2001, and after a 9-4 2002 season was followed up by a 3-9 disaster in 2003 and a 4-7 2004, the hot Big Ten topic was how the Paterno era was going to end. How was he going to recruit with his age, no succession plan, and with four awful, losing seasons in five years? Instead, his team matured, went 11-1 in 2005, and has been a powerhouse ever since winning 51 games in five years and flirting with the national title in 2008. Even so, without any set plan in place for when his era is over, like there is at Texas and was at Florida State, there’s still an ongoing concern about what will happen when he finally decides to kick back and relax.
6. Lane Kiffin, head coach, Tennessee
After building his reputation as a top-shelf offensive coordinator for USC during the glory years under Pete Carroll, Lane Kiffin became the stunning hire for the Oakland Raider job in 2007. At 31, he was the youngest head coach in recent NFL history (at the time), but he was a disaster going 4-12 and having Al Davis railing about how Kiffin had brought disgrace to the organization. However, that was not a problem for Tennessee, who brought him on to replace the fired Phil Fulmer in 2008 … and what a ride it was. There was a feud with Urban Meyer, recruiting accusations, violations of SEC rules, and a whole bunch of bluster. However, he brought in a good recruiting class, turned around a woeful offense, and the needle was pointing up as he appeared to be turning around the program with a competitive 7-6 season. And then Pete Carroll left for the Seattle Seahawks, the USC job became open, and Kiffin was a one-and-done at Tennessee. Basically, the guy has had three plum coaching jobs, dream shots for most coaches, despite producing a fat load of jack-squat.
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11. Rick Neuheisel, head coach, Washington
Neuheisel earned the term “Slick Rick” following his time at Colorado when he left the program with several rules violations and two years of probation before going off to Washington. A success with the Huskies, he took them to a 1999 Rose Bowl win and had gone 33-16 in four years, but he was canned after a disappointing 7-6 season and after a controversy revolving around an NCAA basketball tournament pool. The NCAA didn’t seem to have a problem with Neuheisel (at least because of this incident) even though he had technically violated the rules, but Washington let him go anyway. It was a sloppy job done by both the NCAA and Washington, Neuheisel sued for wrongful termination, and won $4.5 million before going on to be an assistant for the Baltimore Ravens and the head man at UCLA.
3. Les Miles’ “Have a great day” speech
LSU was in the midst of a strange 2007 season. Despite having, arguably, the most talented team in the country, the banged up Tigers struggled with losses to Kentucky and Arkansas all but ending talk of a national title. At the same time all of this happened, Lloyd Carr was on his way to retirement and the Michigan job became open. LSU head coach Les Miles, a former Michigan offensive lineman, had made no secret about the fact that he wanted the job, and according to many rock-solid inside reports, he was telling people he was going to take it. There was only one problem: there was still a chance that everything could go right for LSU. The Tigers won the SEC title and got the breaks they needed with Missouri losing the Big 12 championship game and West Virginia choking at home to Pitt, but none of this had happened yet and Miles couldn’t start talking about taking over at Michigan before the SEC title game was played, just in case everything ended up breaking the right way. On the morning before the title, Kirk Herbstreit came out and announced that Miles was leaving for Michigan (which was, according to many insider sources, the right report, but Herbstreit later apologized after Miles stayed at LSU). All this led to Miles coming out with his classic rant about his “damn strong football team” and finishing up with his disingenuous “have a great day.”
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The Miles Speech on YouTube
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14. Jeff Jagodzinski, head coach, Boston College
There’s Shelly Long leaving Cheers, McLean Stevenson leaving M*A*S*H, and there’s Jeff Jagodzinski’s Boston College career. He had done a nice job of replacing Tom O’Brien as the head man going 20-8 in two years, and his success, particularly with QB Matt Ryan, made him a bit of a hot commodity. The New York Jets job became open and Jagodzinski was on the list of possible options. However, BC athletic director Gene DeFilippo told Coach Jags that he couldn’t interview for it. Jagodzinski interviewed for it, got canned by BC, and the Jets hired Rex Ryan. Jagodzinski appeared to land on his feet as the offensive coordinator at Tampa Bay, but he was fired before the 2009 season began.
7. It’s All About “The U.”
ESPN has been running a series of documentaries about highlighting some of the biggest sports stories over the last thirty years, and the biggest and the most popular of the lot revolved around the Miami football program in the 1980s. Director Billy Corben’s love letter to his favorite college football was entertaining, but it also proved what many suspected about the Hurricanes of the 1980s. The players were outrage at the idea that they were seen as criminals, thugs, or underachievers, but the documentary unintentionally highlighted a bulk of them to be all three of those things (often with a twisted boys-will-be-boys attitude) with enough revelations and ammunition for the NCAA to wipe away the entire era from the record books.
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10. FIU vs. Miami, 2006
There aren’t a lot of big brawls in college
football, for a variety of reasons, and while there
are the occasionally shoving matches when tempers
are high, they don’t get to this level. There was no
questioning that the far more talented Canes were
going to whack the Golden Panthers (they won 35-0),
but there was helmet swinging, benches clearing, and
an all-out rumble of ugly proportions made worse by
announcer Lamar Thomas bragging about how this was
Miami football (and was fired for it). The Canes
ended up losing four of its final seven games and
went 7-6 while FIU went winless.
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The Brawl on YouTube
2. Rich Rodriguez, head coach, West Virginia
It was all working out like a dream for West Virginia fans. It’s not like the Don Nehlen era was bad, quite the contrary, but the program hit a ceiling during his 20-year tenure and time and again failed when the spotlight was on in bowl games. After Nehlen retired, on came Rich Rodriguez, a former defensive back for the Mountaineers in the early 1980s and a tremendous offensive mind whose offenses were fabulous at both Tulane and Clemson. After a year of adjustment, RichRod’s teams were fantastic with four Big East titles in five years, and more importantly, long-desired respect earned after beating Georgia in the 2006 Sugar Bowl and with a 31-5
record over three years with Rodriguez at the helm. However, he closed out his West Virginia career as bad as could possibly be scripted.
In 2007, the Mountaineers had a chance to go to the national title needing only to win at home over a mediocre Pitt team to almost certainly get to the BCS Championship. QB Pat White got dinged up, the comeback attempt fell short, and WVU blew its dream shot in a 13-9 loss that left everyone around the program shocked and dazed. And then came the haymaker as Rodriguez was hired by Michigan soon after, and while Mountaineer fans didn’t take too kindly to the idea that one of its own would perceive any job as an upgrade, even one as big as Michigan’s, that was nothing compared to what was to come.
Under Bill Stewart, West Virginia shocked Oklahoma 48-28 in the Fiesta Bowl showing just how close the team might have come to winning the national title over Ohio State had it not blown the Pitt game. But the bittersweetness turned to full-blown anger over the way Rodriguez left. Not only did he sign a long-term contract to stay at West Virginia, but he tried to get out of the $4 million buyout beginning a messy and ugly divorce which made the one-time golden boy head coach Public Enemy No. 1 among Mountaineer fans. Michigan ended up paying $2.5 million of the buyout, while Rodriguez had to pay the remaining amount.
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15. Rich Rodriguez, head coach, Michigan
There are still chapters yet to be written, but Rodriguez didn’t get more than 45 seconds to breathe after taking over in Ann Arbor and hasn’t received one, single, solitary break from the fan base. For years, many Michigan fans complained that Lloyd Carr wasn’t good enough and wasn’t able to take the program to another level because of his style, and there was a belief that everything had to be torn down and rebuilt to create a team that could compete at a national title level on a yearly basis. But Rodriguez rubbed everyone the wrong way from the start, even though he’s affable and has gone out of his way to try to say the right things. The problem started when Michigan needed to pay $2.5 million to help buy out his West Virginia contract, and then there were problems with players leaving because they didn’t fit in, often with sour grapes being thrown on the way out, followed by possible rules violations after the coaching staff allegedly forced the players to spend too many hours practicing. But more than anything else, the team hasn’t been winning. Even though it has been generally acknowledged that Rodriguez needed a few recruiting cycles to get the right players in place, the 8-16 record in two years has been unacceptable at a place like Michigan.
Tournament of Tumult Brackets
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Looping
Throwing Motion Bracket
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Being Fortunate Enough To Spend Five or 20 Minutes Bracket
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Wonderlic 22 Score Bracket
-
Circumcising Filipino Boys Bracket
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1st Round Results
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2nd Round Results