College Football's Academy Awards: Handing out Hardware to the Most Deserving

The Academy Awards are over, which means you now have a long list of movies to see that you will never actually see. It’s a tradition unlike any other.

This yearly celebration of film is also a painful reminder that the college football offseason is still in its earliest stages. It’s really not a reminder of that at all, unless, of course, you’re struggling with the gap between football and more football like many of us are. And although college football has its own batch of college football awards—and even award shows—it has no Oscars.

Let me rephrase that; it “had” no Oscars.

In an effort to remain topical and reward the Oscar-deserving efforts of the past year of pigskin, The College Football Academy (me, and a few bottles of red wine) has selected the first-ever recipients of these awards.

Here are your Oscar winners from the 2011 college football season.

Best Music (Original Song): Mississippi State Cowbells

Cowbells are deafening. And at Mississippi State, they are rung in the stadium when they are allowed to be rung, and especially when they’re not. This is wonderful, unless you’re the opposing team playing in Starkville, Miss. or someone that is opposed to extremely loud noises. Play one cowbell by its lonesome, and you have noise. Play 10,000 or more cowbells at once, and you have your very own stadium symphony.

One might not believe that there could possibly be anything synchronized or coordinated when it comes to mass cowbells being rung wildly at once, but chaos also has a very distinct rhythm and a sound that is oh so sweet.

Best Costume Design: The Fake Ref Streaker

It was truly a terrible football game, but this is a Thursday night we will never forget.

Arizona was blasting UCLA late in the year—the same UCLA that later played in the Pac-12 Championship Game—42-7, with less than 10 seconds left in the half. Before either team could make it to the locker room, however, young Jace Lankow entered the equation.

Dressed as a referee, Jace worked his way onto the field, flawlessly blowing the play dead. After a moment of on-field confusion and a brief attempt to grab the football, he took off and eventually was tracked down, cuffed and escorted out with less clothing on than he came in with. His bold move caused a fight to break out between the two teams, and the madness was on. A mini-brawl in a blowout game, all from one man in a fake ref ensemble?

Congratulations on the award, son.

Best Visual Effects: Robert Griffin and Kendall Wright in “Holy #$%^ That Just Happened”

A loaded category with plenty of worthy candidates, but the special effects in this collaborated Baylor effort were above and beyond anything we saw in 2011 or early 2012.

Baylor toppled Oklahoma for the first time in 1,345 years and did so behind Robert Griffin’s 479 passing yards and four touchdowns. Eighty-four of those yards, however, came on one ridiculous play that clearly benefited from a miraculous tip and some computer enhancements. There simply is no other way to explain this play after it leaves RG3’s hand and eventually ends up going the distance for a touchdown.

Technology really is a wonderful thing.

Best Actor in a Supporting Role: De’Anthony Thomas

Oregon’s electric freshman came into the 2011 season with significant hype in an already deep backfield. DAT didn’t disappoint, and although he received five or more carries in only four games throughout the season, he still averaged nearly 11 yards per carry and racked up nearly 600 yards on the ground. He added over 600 yards receiving and finished the year with 16 touchdowns on only 101 total touches. My goodness.

His Rose Bowl performance is what sealed the Oscar, however, as he went for 155 yards and two touchdowns on only two carries against Wisconsin. Although there has been rampant speculation that Thomas was wearing a jet pack in this game, thus far, no legitimate evidence has surfaced.

Best Screenplay: Washington and Baylor in the 2011 Alamo Bowl

Baylor 67, Washington 56. Not a typo or a basketball score for those that sat out non-BCS bowl games. In fact, this is entirely too many points for a basketball game involving a Pac-12 team.

Fifteen touchdowns, 123 points, nearly 1,400 yards and a Heisman winner. This was basically a Michael Bay film, except it had a compelling plot and people actually wanted to watch it. Oh, and explosions were replaced with game-breaking plays that only occurred every 10 minutes or so.

The reason this film was so successful is because it embraced what it was. Trying to play even a hint of defense would have been a detriment to the authenticity of the film and drastically hurt character development. Beautifully written, well-executed and a bold attempt that gets recognized here.

Best Director: Nick Saban

A great director deals with adversity, manages egos, overcomes shortcomings and in the end, is able to put together an award-winning piece of art. That’s exactly what Nick Saban was able to do in the 2011 season en route to another national championship. More impressive, however, is that he did it without kicking his own kickers through the goal posts despite their massive struggles against LSU in Game of the Century of the Month of the Week: Part One.

This was an extremely tight race between Saban and Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy, and while the Academy absolutely loves Gundy’s locker-room dancing, it's also terrified of receiving a phone call from a very unhappy Nick Saban wanting an explanation.

The Oscar is yours, coach. 

Best Actor in a Leading Role: Robert Griffin III

For a good chunk of the season, RG3 had more touchdown passes than incompletions. This is something you couldn’t do in a video game, though I encourage you to try it. 

Although he didn’t keep up that blistering pace throughout the entire year, he did finish the season with nearly a 73 percent completion percentage and 47 total touchdowns. He also took home that award which is somewhat famous and given to college football’s best player. His college career was then capped off with that 67-56 Alamo Bowl win over Washington that took home an Oscar earlier.

This is as much of a no-brainer as we have in Oscar land, and Griffin didn’t just win the game and put up the numbers, he also wore Superman socks while giving his superb Heisman speech. Oh, what a cherry on top.

Congratulations to everyone that took home an Oscar, and thanks to everyone for coming to the first-ever College Football Academy Awards. We will see you all in 2013 unless they cancel our presentation, which seems like a very likely possibility.