Return of Heisman Finalists is Not a Good Thing

That is, unless you are a fan of those three schools. With the news that Colt McCoy, Tim Tebow, and Sam Bradford are returning to school next year, the preseason polls will most likely have these teams as the top three especially since Mark Sanchez is rumored to be entering the draft. Each new college football season is supposed to be a clean slate, a new journey that is "unique" to sports. You think the media coverage of these three, especially Tebow was overblown this year? You haven't seen anything yet. With the ESPN goliath controlling the SEC/Big XII along with CBS showcasing SEC football it is going to be a steady diet of these three quarterbacks and their schools. Think you have sat through superfluous montages of Tim Tebow before? There will be one on ESPN almost everyday of the 2009 college football season. Gameday will be at most of these team's games and at the very least will be discussing the teams all year long.

The only hope we have is for these teams to lose or the players to struggle. I do not feel you should be rooting simply for a player to do poorly but otherwise the scene in New York for the doorstop trophy will be the same as it was this year, just with different voting. Of course we know that even if these teams lose it will not stop them. All three teams lost early in the season but Oklahoma and Florida were there at the end, aided no doubt by the affinity the media has for them. The non-stop coverage will detract from other stories in college football, the other teams and players will get a brief mention during their highlights or a 30 second segment, but the conversation will again turn to the big three. As long as they have similar numbers to this year, they will be Heisman finalists again.

So perhaps the only hope is to have the schools lose multiple times, which eill depend on how improved their conference foes are, because these teams rarely travel to an out of conference game of much value. It looks very much like next year there will be a handful of one-loss teams in the conversation for the BCS title and perhaps one undefeated non-BCS school but we know how they will be treated. The teams that will rise above and get the invitation to the championship bowl game will be the ones with the best reputations, not necessarily the best team. It appears college football has become at best a high school class president election and these three are the coolest kids in school.