Remembering the 2013 College Football Season

Well. That went fast. 2013 gave us a lot of great memories. We saw the fall of an Empire as a result of a miracle only Luke Skywalker at the end of A New Hope could rival. We saw the Famous, the JFF, a fox on the field, Urban pulling a Steven Glansberg, and Lane left at a bus stop. Here were some of our favorite moments and stories of 2013.

Travis Wilson:

Rice Rice Baby

           

Let’s hear it for the Rice Owls. The little ol’ Rice Owls. Growing up in Austin, I was always aware of Rice for their academics. For a stint, I thought I wanted to go to Rice (until I learned it was a total nerd school). For some reason I’ve always felt bad for the Rice football team. I mean, they’re playing football in THE football state and they’ve been perennially awful. In the end, I can’t feel too bad for all those former Rice Owl football players that walked off the field defeated, because they also walked across a stage with a degree from a very prestigious university.

That said, my moment of the year for this football season goes out to the Rice Owls and their Conference USA championship. Sure, there are plenty of other major moments that I could have chosen from this season (thanks for covering the Iron Bowl, Adam – really went out on a limb with that one), but watching the Rice football team celebrate in the locker room after winning their conference is something that I can’t let go unnoticed. College sports – more specifically, college football – are superior to professional sports because you know the athletes are competing everyday, dedicating almost their entire college experience to the game, based on pure passion and love for the sport.

That’s pretty evident in videos like this. Is there anything better than a good locker room celebration? The moment where these players who have given so much to their team finally get to let it all out in one fantastic purge of emotion.

  

So congratulations to the 2013 Rice Owls football team and their first conference championship in 19 years. I look forward to working for one of you one day, boss.

Marshall Weber:

Gossip Girls

Over the next several weeks, the Texas-Alabama-Mack-Saban gossip will only continue to get more exasperating. Between Facebook statuses, tweets, guys on bath salts outside 7-11, you’d think Saban was already at Texas. You’d also think that Terry Saban had twenty houses and owned Austin as if it were her own, personal Downton Abbey. 

Saying that Saban will find success at Texas is a safer bet than saying I won’t go full Fassbender and make an ass of myself at my own Christmas party...you here that Vegas? If Saban does indeed join the Empire, there’s no doubt him coaching in the Big 12 will make the conference a shit-ton more exciting…

But---what if it isn’t the rainbows and lollipops that Texas fans are all too quick to assume it will be? Have they watched the games in which Alabama goes against the more complicated offenses of the SEC? Do they need to be reminded that Garrett Gilbert picked apart their championship defense?

Have they even seen this guy in a press conference?

In what’s possibly the nicest slight ever said about him, Saban is a grump. He’s not the politician Mack is/was and won’t have that cheeky “family friendly” smile as he shakes the hands of all the men and women who bought their Texas education at WalGreens for $14.99. Not saying Oscar the Grouch won’t win, I just hope Texas fans don’t get upset when they get Billy Bob Thorton and not Tom Hanks.

“I’m not a businessman. I am a business, man”

Either way, the University of Texas is a step away from becoming the New York Yankees/Gordon Gekko of college football. For better or worse, they aren’t even a football team anymore. They’re a corporation and are going to have to decide if it’s going to be OZCORP or Wayne Enterprises.

WMFDE

A Game of Thrones:

Rest assured this isn’t Gene Chizik’s/Cam Newton’s Auburn in which the success was due (and paid) to one man. This is a system. If the above scenario does happen, it’ll be because Gus ran the Mad King out of Bama and now controls the Iron Thrown, which basically means he’s the King of the South.

Sorry TI.

Me, Myself and I:

Just because I said Malzahn’s success isn’t built around one guy doesn’t mean there can’t be a superstar. Tre Mason is a superstar. Mason, who had a mind-blowing 304 yards and four touchdowns in the SEC Championship against Mizzou, averaged just over 124 yards this season. The icing on the cake is that Tre’s father is Vincent Mason, aka Maseo, of Long Island hip-hop trio De La Soul.

Adam Zimmerman:

Iron Chills

I thought for a long time, hoping to pick out something that not many people would remember so that I could unearth a pleasant surprise for our wonderful readers. But my Vols only went 5-7 so their field goal for the upset over South Carolina didn't quite turn our season around. Although, Marquez North’s catch should make all of the end of the year highlight montages and even a top-10 list. And my hometown team, Longhorns, went an ugly 8-4. I’m almost tempted to say that the BYU game was the best moment of the season for me because it all but ensured a bright future for Texas – if they hire the right replacement for Coach Brown.

And yet, I still couldn't put anything above the Returned Field Goal Heard Round the World in the Iron Bowl. I was in a room full of family members when I watched the play. We had actually paused the TV right at Yeldon ran out bounds so that we could catch overtime after dinner. Well during dinner I received a text or 6 from ESPN and others telling me how great that ending was. Even though I knew what happened, almost no one else in the family did. So we gathered back around the TV after dinner and I told everyone to pay attention, careful not to give anything away. They put the extra second on the clock and my dad and uncles debated whether a field goal was the right call or not. We all now know what happened. I won’t ever know what it was like to watch that play not knowing what was about to happen, but hearing my sister, who knows nothing about football except that tailgates are great opportunities to judge other women’s’ fashion choices, as she watched Chris Davis cross the goal line say, “I just got chills,” is enough for me to know how special that play really was. 

Andrew Brown:

Farewell BCS

You know what’s funny?

For the amount of hate and criticism that the BCS has been subject to over the years—and rightfully so, it was a flawed system—it got it right in its last hurrah.

Over the years we have seen countless snubs, as well as teams that were selected to a BCS bowl because of the name on the front of the jersey, not because of the quality of the names on the back (Notre Dame I’m looking at you).

The BCS’s charades have left a trail of tears; built upon broken dreams and soiled hopes of countless teams and unbeaten mid-majors that were denied their shot at a miracle, all in the name of a corrupt system of football fanatics that decided they were smarter than everyone else.

Needless to say, a lot of people are still bitter.

But as the bell tolls for the Bowl Championship Series, and a brighter playoff pasture looms on the horizon, the BCS managed to snub its nose at the fans of America’s Pastime one last time.

They got it right.

With all due respect to teams like Michigan State, Baylor, and Alabama (although, seriously Bama fans, quit complaining. Nobody has sympathy for you) the two teams that should be playing are playing. Auburn and Florida State are the two best teams in the nation this year.

As the BCS takes its leave, so many writers and experts were drooling over the looming Ohio State/Florida State matchup because they wanted a reason to doubt the BCS one last time.

Everybody knew that Auburn was better than Ohio State; let’s not kid ourselves. We wanted the controversy—Hell, we were begging for it.

But as the season came to a chaotic close, the BCS got one last chance to do its best Marcus Hall impression and hoist the double-bird salute to the entire country as it made its grand exit.

Well done, BCS. I can’t say I will miss you, but as I think about the agonizing and chaotic storylines you have created over the years, I can’t necessarily say that I won’t.

For fans of my generation, the BCS is effectively all we have ever known. To see it go is truly an end of an era.

Thanks for the memories, Bowl Championship Series.