Year End Hatemay Awards

First off, congrats to the men's basketball team on a strong road win against Wyoming. Some may ask "what is a Hatemay award"? Well, there are several reasons to receive a Hatemay award. Some involve excellence in the world of college football, some involve stupidity, but one for those who are familiar with my works know that what I say and write usually involves the sarcastic with good points of college ball.

First Hatemay award is in the category for Top Newcomer of the Year. Candidates involve Marcus Mariota, Johnny Manziel, and late bloomer Kevin Hogan. Many will say, geez hatemay, these guys are all quarterbacks. Yes, they are. There were other candidates, but quarterbacks are easiest to evaluate, because they are in the spotlight ever play. Anyways, this was a close one. Hogan lead a late season charge for one of the most boring offenses in the history of college sports. He was consistent, he took care of the ball, made some good throws, and got out of pressure quite a bit. He was the only bright spot of the "3 yards and a cloud of dust offense." Mariota was the leader of Chip Kelly's offense. The same offense that doesn't take it's foot off the gas with the game already decided. There is one thing Chip Kelly does well, that is pad his ego when the game is already decided. That being said, Mariota played very well and was a dang good freshman. Notice that I said the word "freshman." While he played so well, there were times he clearly made freshman mistakes. Making the pitch too late, trying to do too much. The winner of the award goes to Johnny Manziel. He was a man among boys this year. The Air Raid offense is deadly, and it usually is built around a a pocket passing, smart quarterback. Throw a freak athlete into the mix and this offense goes to the stratosphere. The offense has been known to "have two guys open every play." Well, if those two guys aren't open, and the other three aren't, then let the fast guy outrun slow guys. Congrats Johnny Manziel, winner of the Hatemey's Top Newcomer of the Year.

The second category for this year''s Hatemay award is the Biggest Meltdown of the Year. The candidates include, West Virginia. Running their style of the Air Raid, WVU got off to a fast start. WVU won their first 5 games of the year , including a game where they hung 70 on Baylor and , beat Texas by 3 on the road. They followed those games up with 5 straight losses. Those losses included a lopsided contest in Lubbock, a sad effort loss to KState, a loss to TCU that could only run about 4 plays, and losses at OK State and OK. WVU went from being a team that was playing for the National Title game and a shoe in Heisman winner, to a team that was lucky to be bowl eligible. Second Candidate: The Big East Conference. Wow, what a total meltdown of teams. Who's coming" Who's going? Who's staying" Who's going to air the football games in 2014? So many questions, so few answers, which is why I am guessing BSU wanted back into Hair Thompson's Salon. The winner of the award for Biggest Meltdown of the Year goes to USC. In August, everyone (even the USC haters like me) were accepting fate that USC was returning a string of talent longer than a gorilla's arm: Two draft pick wide receivers in Marquise Lee and Robert Woods, a first round draft pick quarterback who came back for "un-finished business," two running backs that have talent, a defensive coordinator who should have retired from the game 20 years ago, and a head Coach who has no real track record of winning. The wheels came off early, USC lost its third game of the year to Stanford, then, USC lost two track meets against Arizona and Oregon, USC then tried to save face by winning out, but only managed to win one of its final three games. In its game against UCLA, USC lost not only the game, but lost Barkley for the rest of the year due to injury. All in all, the pre-season National Champs managed to go 7-6, including a Bowl loss to Georgia Tech. Congratulations USC, you are the winner of Hatemay's Biggest Meltdown of the Year award.

The next award is in regard to coaching. It is called the King Nothing award. It is in reference to the coaches who the media has treated like bona-fide legends. The coaches who I think had a lot to prove, but the media thought were the best thing since sliced bread. The first candidate is Lane Kiffin. What on earth has he done to get two high profile coaching jobs in the last 5 years? He had been a coordinator at USC for a few years under Pete Carroll, then Kiffin was hired to coach the Oakland Raiders. Kiffin did a bang up job in Oakland going 5-15, before being fired. Kiffin then went to Tennessee for one year, before going to USC. Kiffin has done nothing to impress. This year he had by far the most amount of talent and yet USC goes 7-6. These losses are not games in which USC simply came up on the short end of the stick, they are games in which USC was out coached, USC , was under prepared, effort was lacking, and execution was average. That all stems from one person: The Head Coach. The Head Coach failed to have a solid plan or agenda, and because of that, he fails to relay that to the rest of his staff, and they fail to make it set in amongst the players. Second candidate is former Auburn head coach Gene Gizick. Gizick acquired a stellar record at Iowa State. He went 5-19 at Iowa State, before the bow ties at birkenstocks at Auburn thought he was a great candidate to replace Tommy Tuberville. Gizick rode the coat tails of Cam Newton and his brainy offensive coordinator, Gus Malzhan. Anyone with oxygen flowing to their brain knows that there are plenty of inconsistencies with what happened in regards to the Cam Newton scandal. And Newton is so arrogant he rubs our faces in it. During an interview on radio row at last year's Super Bowl when asked if his father received any money Newton could only say that to answer that question would be moving backwards, and he can only move forward. Back to Gizick. The media fell in love with Gizick, Newton, and Auburn during Auburn's National Title run. All the media wanted to do was say how Gizick was the best in the business at what he does. One thing I told people in the college football circles was "hey, lets see how well Gizick does when he doesn't have Scam Newton or his brilliant O.C. Well, Gizick parlayed his National Title win into two successful season following and lived happily ever after at Auburn.... WRONG. Gizick lost his O.C. to the Arkansas State head coaching job, Newton went to the NFL, and Gizick failed to put together an offense that was relevant in the SEC for two years. This past year, Auburn failed to win a conference game, and played musical quarterbacks... this, and other reasons led to the firing of Coach Gene Gizick, and for that reason he is the winner of Hatemay's King Nothing award.

The final award of the year is the Hot Seat award. There are a few coaches that should not get too comfortable where they are at... unless they start winning games. First up, is Mike Leach. While winning games is tough to do in Pullman for a variety of reasons, Leach was paid a pretty penny to turn things around. A victory the last game of the year against UW certainly helped the sting of things, but anything short of a bowl game appearance this next year would be failure. Second candidate: Bronco Mendenhall. Yes, all is not well in Zion. BYU finished the year 8-5. The year started well and ended well, but what happened in between was not so great. When it was all said and done, BYU had started 3 different quarterbacks, one of which received a season ending injury because he called his own number instead of taking a knee, and because of that he lost a knee. Mendenhall has since demoted former offensive coordinator Brandon Doman to quarterbacks coach and brought in former offensive coordinator Robert Anae to try and steady the ship. Let me get this straight.... Anae didn't do a good enough job a few years ago, so they fired him, after having some time to "think about what he'd done wrong" Anae is now the savior for the BYU offense...? Hope that works out well. The third candidate for the Hot Seat award is Texas head coach Mack Brown. 9-4 isn't gonna cut it at Texas. 9 win seasons are not what that fan base is accustomed to. They need to be winning 10, 11, or 12 games. There has been way too much musical quarterback at Texas the last two years. I'm not sure why Case McCoy is on the team. He plays the quarterback position like an 8th grade wanna be baller on the middle school basketball court. Trying to cross over and dribble between his legs too much. Throw in a crappy quarterback, and a starting quarterback that had injury and consistency issues and that is a recipe for disaster. The winner of the this years Hatemay Hot Seat Award is: Mike Leach. Simply put, there are 2.5 million reasons why. Leave your comments as you may.