No, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus...

or "No, Colt, there is no Justice", or "Sportsmanship No Longer Lives Here."

In a season where Texas was predicted to be relegated to second tier in the Big 12 and led by a "butter armed" qb, Mack Brown and Colt McCoy nearly did the impossible.  Texas had a great season, mostly because McCoy had a phenomenal season and the Texas D was the best in the Big 12, and finishes with a BCS game against Ohio State.  DE Brian Orakpo receives the national recognition he deserves with his many awards and Colt McCoy receives the Walter Camp Football Foundation national player of the year award.  And to this Texas fan, it feels like a kick in the nuts.

I know this is a team sport and individual awards do not make a season good or bad.  But how did Texas find itself in the position of being one of the most underrated teams in the country?  Mack Brown cant get Coach of the Year when he fields a team that lost so many offensive and defensive starters to the NFL and injury, a team with no established RB, no big game WR, playing TRUE-freshman in the defensive backfield, and still comes within 1 second of being 12-0.  No respect for that at all even within his own conference? 

How about Colt McCoy, crushing an NCAA record by completing 77.6% of his passes, beating OUsux by 10, playing behind the most under-achieving O-line I've seen in years, throwing to WR that people outside of Texas fans don't know exist, and leading the team in rushing in half the games.  No?  Not good enough to beat out Sam Bradford who gets to play behind that huge O-Line, hand the ball off to Demarco Murray, and gets to throw into the endzone to Jones, Johnson, and Gresham well into the 4th quarter?  One measly award, while Bradford gets awards piled on for basically being a Tech system qb playing for OU.  Really, whats the difference between Bradford and Harrel except Bradford plays with much more talented teammates and plays for a more prestigious school? (Did I really just call OUsux prestigious? No, simply more so than Tech.  Its like calling IHOP more upscale than Denny's.)

Now that my rant is done, I'm not here to complain about being screwed out of a couple of championship games.  This post is more about the lack of recognition for Coach Brown and Colt McCoy.  And Bradford "winning" the Heisman is a farce.  How the game has degraded into it's current state where humiliating your opponent is held in higher regard than sportsmanship, and old awards that used to mean something have become like glitter on a postcard (shiny but ultimately useless and downright annoying). 

What I believe happened this season was that the media and Big 12 coaches picked OU to be the best team in the Big 12 and when OU found themselves in a tie refused to consider the merits of each team involved and instead decided to prove themselves right by voting OU ahead.  Perception is king, and why admit that you were wrong when its so much easier to ignore head to head victories and just keep pushing OU to the top of your ballot.  If somebody asks you why you voted OU ahead of Texas just pretend that you forgot about the RRS and you thought OU was undefeated.  Ok, sorry, ranting again.

So I guess what it comes down to is this, if you want recognition for the team and the individual players, you have to sacrifice sportsmanship and score as many points as possible.  If that's what it takes to get the attention of the Big 12 coaches, I say, fine.  Next year, play all 4 quarters and score as many points as possible on ALL Big 12 opponents.  Show no mercy, I'm sure Mack can do it in a classy way.  "No hard feelings, right Coach Pinkel?  We're just doing what's asked of us by you and the rest of the nation."  I'm not being facetious, I really do hope that Texas plays hard for 4 quarters, puts up as many points as Colt and Co. can, and win the games obviously.  There's no award for being classy or showing sportsmanship, and by that I mean pulling starters and not running up the score, so why bother?  Run up the score, you can do that without being a dick about it, Stoops obviously cant, but Texas can. 

This season has proven that sportsmanship and honor have no place in college football anymore.  At least not as we used to know it.  How many times did the announcers or the media call out Stoops for running up the score?  None that I can recall, in fact they rewarded them for doing so.  I'm not saying that we have to Stoop to their level(yes, a pun), but neither do we have to burden ourselves by limiting our style points.  Play the whole game and score as many points as you can because style points do matter.  Undefeated seasons are hard to come by and its only going to be more difficult as more and more talent spreads around.  If you want to play for championships with a loss on your record, style points and timing matter big time.

My ultimate wish is for Texas and McCoy to put up indecent numbers next year, win it all, and for Colt to get his Heisman.  But when he gets up there to give his acceptance speech, I want him to stand up there behind the podium and say, "No thanks.  This award no longer has any ties to what actually occurs on the field of play and is no longer worthy of being called 'The Heisman.'"