College Football

There is a very good reason why Alabama vs. South Carolina in the SEC Championship Game might be the safest prediction for the 2013 college football season.

It has little to do with recent history, though the two-time defending champion Crimson Tide and a Gamecock squad that has won 11 games in each of the past two seasons have both proven themselves to be powerhouses in the modern game.

It also has nothing to do with the talent on the field.  While Alabama might have more future pros on their roster than any other team and South Carolina is led by the best player in college football, there are several other teams in the SEC who can put comparable talent out on the field.

The reason Alabama and South Carolina will meet in the title game is because they happen to play fewer of those teams than any of the league’s other contenders.

LSU announced on Tuesday that their newly hired offensive coordinator Cam Cameron will receive a three-year contract that will pay him $600,000 for the 2013 season.

Cameron was named LSU's offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach last week. He will earn $1.3 million in his second year and $1.5 million for the final year of the contract, which runs through the 2015 season.

Cameron's contract must be approved by the LSU Board of Supervisors before it becomes official.

It was inevitable that it would come to this for Notre Dame’s Manti Te’o. While nobody outside of a handful of people are aware of whether Te’o was in on the hoax that fooled and shamed the media as well as the entire nation, rumors within NFL circles are circulating that Te'o's sexuality fueled his desire to push the narrative of his relationship with Lennay Kekua.

CBS Sports columnist Mike Freeman believes this theory has some validation. “Theory about why Manti did what he did has reached NFL team circles and if true absolutely explains his actions”.

Freeman also tweeted: “If this theory is true, Manti would end up being one of the most important stories in history.”

Presumably, the theory is that Kekua was Te’o’s phantom girlfriend, or beard. Just for a primer, beards are colloquial terms for members of the opposite sex who serve as false love interests for gay men or lesbian women.

Sometimes being critical pays off, even if it’s just to have that “told you so” ammo stashed away in the back pocket, ready to whip out at a moment’s notice when truth catches up with blarney, or to avoid the feeling of crushing disappointment that comes at the same juncture as reality hits from being led astray.

In sports, heck, in all facets of life today, how can you be any other way … if you hope to maintain any modicum of sanity or any semblance of perspective?

Some words to the wise: Stop believing the hype. Whatever it is. Now.

Our latest uproar in the athletic realm may be among the most lame. From point shaving to performance-enhancing drugs, our BS cup has runneth over time and again. Yet, we keep going back for more in that ever-elusive, apparently never-ending hunt for pure glory, a true hero, some sort of salvation in a sports context. Who really knows why. But it continues with no end in sight.

There are many reasons why we love college sports. First, for the purity of the competition—student-athletes are fully-vested in their alma mater. The kids do not have egos; they do not play for lucrative contracts, but for the love of school pride. When student-athletes perform, their emotions are raw, uncut, and genuine; it is not pretentious nor beguile—I cannot say the same about college coaches.  The latest breaking headline in the college coaching carousal  reads “Chip Kelly does an about-face, leaves Oregon for the NFL’s Eagles.” Here we go again, another high profile college coach literally looked his players in their eyes, gave them his word that he would not leave, only to jump ship for greener pastures a few days later.

This seems to be the new trend among college coaches who are not allowed to enjoy a single winning season with their players or programs after a success year before they are lured away by lucrative contracts and bigger programs.