The Heisman presentation is a few days away, but tonight the rest of the college football awards will be given out in Orlando.

Here are the awards and their finalists. I’ll pick who I think will win and who should win:

Maxwell Award (College Player of the Year)
Andrew Luck
Kellen Moore
Trent Richardson

Who will win: Andrew Luck
Who should win: Andrew Luck

Comment: In any other year, Luck wins the Heisman. The Maxwell will provide some consolation.

Davey O’Brien Award (Top Quarterback)
Robert Griffin III
Case Keenum
Andrew Luck

Who will win: Andrew Luck
Who should win: Andrew Luck

Comment: Luck really is the prototype at his position and could probably shine in any type of system, which is why he gets the nod here.

Bednarik Award (Top Defensive Player)
Dont’a Hightower
Tyrann Mathieu
Devon Still

Who will win: Tyrann Mathieu
Who should win: Tyrann Mathieu

Comment: No defensive player mattered more this year or made more of an impact on the national title race than Mathieu.

Biletnikoff Award (Top Receiver)
Justin Blackmon
Ryan Broyles
Robert Woods

Who will win: Justin Blackmon
Who should win: Robert Woods

Comment: Woods carried a resurgent USC team for much of the year, breaking the Pac-12 reception record in the process.

Outland Trophy (Top Interior Lineman)
David DiCastro
Devon Still
Barrett Jones

Who will win: Barrett Jones
Who should win: Devon Still

Comment: The only bright spot for the Nittany Lions this year had 17 tackles for loss as an interior tackle.

Jim Thorpe Award (Top Defensive Back)
David Amerson
Mark Barron
Morris Claiborne

Who will win: Morris Claiborne
Who should win: Morris Claiborne

Comment: When you are the best cover corner in a secondary that includes Tyrann Mathieu, you are pretty darn good.

Doak Walker Award (Top Running Back)
Montee Ball
LaMichael James
Trent Richardson

Who will win: Trent Richardson
Who should win: Montee Ball

Comment: If scoring 38 touchdowns doesn’t merit some kind of award, I don’t know what does.

Mackey Award (Top Tight End)
Dwayne Allen
Orson Charles
Tyler Eifert

Who will win: Dwayne Allen
Who should win: Dwayne Allen

Comment: The athletic Allen was one of the featured weapons in Clemson’s high-powered offense.

Nagurski Award (Top Defender)
Mark Barron
Whitney Mercilus
Devon Still
Luke Kuechly
Morris Claiborne

Who will win: Luke Kuechly
Who should win: Luke Kuechly

Comment: The tackle machine already has the Lombardi and Butkus Award. He deserves this one, too.

Those are my picks. Agree?  Disagree? Sound off in the comments section below.

Quick note on LSU following its big win over Arkansas:

– If the Tigers win the national championship, they’ll be the first champion since Alabama in 1992 to have neither a 1,000-yard rusher nor a 2,000-yard passer.

– LSU will have the rare distinction of being a national champ without an All-American on offense.  The 2007 LSU and 2002 Ohio State teams also had offenses without an All-American.

– LSU will join 2002 Ohio State as the only champions with offenses ranked outside the top 50 in total yards per game.

Given the offensive trends of the past few seasons and the wide-open attacks putting up all these crazy stats, it’s quite remarkable for LSU to be doing what it is doing. Credit to Les Miles for getting a group of superior athletes to play like a true team. I’ve never seen so many small-time contributions lead to such a big-time achievement.

Outside of Tyrann Mathieu, Morris Claiborne and maybe Sam Montgomery, who are the stars on this team? Only Mathieu is well-known to the the majority of the college football world. I’ll wager that LSU doesn’t even have the most All-SEC performers on defense.

But what does that all matter? The defense and special teams are rare. If you dominate 2 out of 3 phases of the game 100% of the time, you’ll almost always win.

No stars, no offense, no problem!

The Tigers really do just win, baby.

Everyone is rightfully shocked and saddened by what’s going on in State College with the Jerry Sandusky child abuse scandal.

It looks like Joe Paterno is on his way out the door after 46 years as head coach of the Nittany Lions and 62 years on staff.

I’m going to add my two cents to what’s going on, but the scandal itself is only incidental to my overall point, which has to do with how the media tends to deify coaches and athletes.

Here is a link to an article about Sandusky from Sports Illustrated in 1999. It includes such wonderful nuggets as:

If Sandusky did not have such a human side, there would be a temptation around Happy Valley to canonize him: Saint Sandusky, leader of linebackers, molder of men. 

* * *

Because Sandusky is so respected, as a man and as the dean of Linebacker U, there’s the impression that it’s just fine with him that he has never been a head coach. It’s not. “I wouldn’t call it devastating,” says Sandusky, choosing his words carefully, “but I would call it a little disappointing. That was definitely a goal of mine when I started. If I hadn’t had the other part of my life—my family and the Second Mile—I would’ve been a head coach.”

* * *

Here’s the best thing you can say about Jerry Sandusky: He’s the main reason that Penn State is Linebacker U…and linebackers aren’t even his enduring legacy.

Well, that’s for sure.

Now, I know it’s easy to rip an article like this. Obviously, the author, Jack McCallum, had no reason to think Sandusky was a child molester when he wrote it.

But it’s an article that never should’ve been written. Why? Because McCallum obviously didn’t know Sandusky. He didn’t know Paterno. It’s clear that no one really did, not even those who are quoted in the story who were supposedly close to both of them.

And this gets to my point: The media should resist the urge to do stories that glorify athletes and coaches in their lives away from the sport.

Why? Because we don’t really know them away from their chosen profession and there’s really no way to know them by just hanging around them for a few hours.

Instead, the media should stick to what it can know: How the coach or athlete performs on the field of competition.

Nothing more.

Once the media steps away from that arena, it enters a nebulous realm where it can be manipulated by those who are trying to cultivate a certain image.

Society has a demand for such images, which is why it’s so easy to write that story about the smiling athlete who everyone loves, or the wise coach who serves as the father figure to so many players.

As a result, there are countless examples of sports figures who’ve been presented as ‘great guys’ by the media who have ended up being not so great after all.

I don’t buy that this is always due to the media being duped. Most of the time, I believe the media is aware of how these sports figures really are, but it’s far more important to the media to ride the gravy train that surrounds sports celebrity, to keep the illusion going for as long as possible. It benefits the players and coaches as well as the media. Tickets are sold, newspapers are bought. Money is made. Everyone is happy.

Until we wake up one morning and find out that coach everyone has been calling a ‘saint’ all these years likes to molest children. Then what? Who is held accountable? Certainly not the people who were compliant in creating a false image to present to the masses.

I’m not saying that we should never know anything about what a player or coach does away from their sport. But we shouldn’t be going around calling a coach a ‘saint’ or talking about how being in a player’s presence will make you a better person.

It could well be that Tim Tebow is a wonderful, wonderful human being. He could also be a serial killer.

But:

1. Neither has any bearing on how he performs on the football field.

2. I have no way of knowing which is actually true.

3. The second point is none of my business anyway.

Our opinion of athletes and coaches should be formed solely by what they do on the field, court, track, gym, arena, course, or pool.

That’s it.

Charles Barkley was right.

I hope the media learns its lesson from the Sandusky story. We’ve been told for years what a great man Joe Paterno is, but it turns out he didn’t do nearly enough to root out this evil that had taken root in his program.

If he was just Joe Paterno: Football Coach instead of Joe Paterno: Living Legend and Healer of the Sick, then perhaps we wouldn’t be so shocked about it.

Here’s some random thoughts on what transpired over the weekend:

– Ah, the Game of the Century. Sorry, but it failed to live up to the hype, despite all the SEC apologists who contend that what we witnessed was, in fact, a defensive masterpiece. Fellas, just because a game is low scoring doesn’t mean it’s due to incredible defensive play.  In truth, the outcome of the game shows what happens when two really good defenses play two really average offenses.

Think about it. Outside of that flanker pass by Marquis Maze, neither LSU nor Alabama attempted anything on offense that would remotely be considered as ‘taking a chance’. The game plans were as tight as an old man’s back. It’s actually surprising to me that the teams produced as much offense as they did considering the vanilla play calling that took place. Those flares to Trent Richardson were about as crazy as it got…and we all saw how poorly LSU covered them. Hard to blame them considering they were probably expecting (1) off tackle (2) sweep (3) down & out or (4) bomb.  In other words, the same playbook from that old classic roller-ball arcade video game between the X’s and the O’s.

Relax, that doesn’t mean these aren’t the two best teams in college football this year. But I think in order to be called a great team, you have to have to be at least very good on both sides of the ball. Yes, these are two very good teams, but no great team fails to score a touchdown in a matchup like this (and please don’t bring up the old Army-Notre Dame scoreless tie…).

– I also think another reason for the offensive banality was that a close second item on each coach’s to-do list (after the top item: win!) … was (2) Make sure if you lose, you lose a close one since the pollsters will barely punish you and maybe we can have a rematch. Go SEC!

So both teams played not to lose, knowing that if the other won by a hair, its chances at a title berth would still be alive. If this were the era before overtime, both sides would have been quite happy with a tie.

And Ara Parseghian would be proud.

Of course the pollsters played right along, rewarding this strategy by dropping the Tide a whole two spots in the rankings to No. 4, which helped put Bama at No. 3 in the BCS rankings that just came out.

– Just because I think the LSU-Alabama game was a dud between two cap gun offenses doesn’t mean I’m excusing poor defense by the rest of the title contenders. I’m talking about you, Oklahoma State. The Cowboys are an amazing offensive team, but I don’t think they’d stand a chance against an LSU defense that was given a full month to prepare.

– By the way, I joked after LSU’s opening win over Oregon that the Tigers will definitely go undefeated if they get 5 turnovers per game the rest of the way.  Well, the numbers aren’t quite that high, but LSU sure does seem to get its share. The Tigers are second nationally in turnover margin (to that other unlikely undefeated team, Oklahoma State). But it’s the quality of LSU’s turnovers that make you shake your head. Case in point, Eric Reid’s interception where he stripped Alabama’s Michael Williams as both fell to the ground. It was a great play and if Williams comes down with it, the Tide probably comes away with the victory. But he didn’t. What’s amazing is that this kind of play would usually be seen as a freak occurrence for most teams, but it’s happened several times this season for the Tigers in some very key moments: the muffed punt by Oregon that allows Tyrann Mathieu to waltz into the end zone; Mathieu tapping a ball to himself to set up a Tiger score against West Virginia; probably another one or two I am forgetting–and now this.

At some point, these stop looking like freak occurrences and start looking like the work of some pretty unique playmakers. But I still wonder how long they can keep it up.

– The team that probably matches up best with the Tigers is Stanford. The Cardinal are a physical team and they have, arguably, the best player in college football.  Stanford is banged up right now, but if it can get through the regular season unscathed, currently injured players like Zach Ertz, Levine Toilolo, Chris Owusu and Delano Howell will have plenty of time to heal in time for a potential BCS title game showdown.

– Why isn’t Brandon Weeden getting more Heisman love? Oklahoma State people want to know. I think the issue with Weeden is that he has gotten a bit lost in the shuffle of what was once a very strong Heisman field. Quarterbacks like Andrew Luck, Kellen Moore, Russell Wilson and Robert Griffin III dominated much of the early Heisman talk, so it was hard for Weeden to gain traction. There was also the factor of Cowboys wide out Justin Blackmon sucking up much of the preseason attention being given to the program.

I think Weeden has a chance to change all this if he can finish the season strong, but this is also one of those cases where the much-pooh-poohed idea of a Heisman campaign (horrors!) would do his candidacy a great service. Believe it or not, Weeden is not a well-known name in college football and letting voters know what he has done, while maybe providing a little compare-and-contrast with the other candidates, would go a long way.

– I know the honor usually goes to the coach of the national champ, but I’d like to see Bill Snyder get Coach of the Year for what he’s accomplished at Kansas State this season.

– I’m not a big fan of what Al Borges has done with Denard Robinson this year. Clearly, the shift in offensive philosophy is hurting his performance. Yes, Robinson can pass, but he’s not a pocket passer. As a result, his numbers are down in every passing category (with his accuracy plunging from 62.5% to 53.1%) and it’s not because he suddenly forgot how to throw the ball. If Michigan is going to stick with this style of offense, it needs to find the right quarterback for its system…or not run that system.

– I took some grief on Twitter on Saturday for suggesting that Texas freshman running back Malcolm Brown has been a big disappointment this year. After watching Joe Bergeron rush for 191 yards and 3 touchdowns against Texas Tech, it occurred to me that Brown isn’t even the best freshman back on his team. Because Twitter has limited contextual capability, let me expand here.

I am not suggesting that Brown is a bad back. I think he’s a good back and has a chance to have a very successful career. He’s been very solid as a freshman, with 635 yards in seven games (he did not play against Tech due to injury).

But the expectations for Brown were through the roof before the season (look here , here and here for examples) and I tended to agree, though I didn’t expect him to be the reincarnation of Adrian Peterson, as some claimed.

Much of that opinion was based on how he looked on tape in high school. After watching him several times this year, however, I see a good power back with slightly above-average speed and decent vision. He has the size and strength to be a successful running back in college and it wouldn’t surprise me if he racks up a couple thousand-yard seasons.

But he’s not a phenom. He’s not Ricky Williams. He’s much closer to Cedric Benson.

And Bergeron?  I thought he showed some special stuff last Saturday and it wouldn’t surprise me if he ends up having a brighter future than Brown, though I wonder if he’ll get a real chance to show it while at Texas.

In the meantime, the Longhorns have a pretty good pair of freshman backs on hand.

– All I will say about UCLA is that when the apocalypse hits, all that will be left are the cockroaches, some canned goods and Rick Neuheisel.

This is an organization that treats every school the same, right?

That’s a laugh. Ask the University of North Dakota.

Read how a North Dakota tribe is battling the NCAA’s political correctness:

FORT TOTTEN, ND – Speaking at the tribal headquarters of the Spirit Lake Sioux Nation, attorney Reed Soderstrom announced a lawsuit against the NCAA alleging copyright infringement and civil rights violations. The Sioux tribe supports the University of North Dakota’s “Fighting Sioux” nickname and logo, but the NCAA has deemed them to be “hostile and abusive.”

“Today, the Spirit Lake Tribe of Indians, by and through its Committee of Understanding and Respect, and Archie Fool Bear, individually, and as Representative of more than 1004 Petitioners of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, filed a lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletic Association in direct response to their attempt to take away and prevent the North Dakota Sioux Indians from giving their name forever to the University of North Dakota,” said Soderstrom in prepared remarks.

Soderstrom alleges that the NCAA has violated “the religious and first amendment rights of the Dakota Sioux tribes.” He also alleged a double standard in the application of the NCAA’s policy against the use of Native American names and imagery.

“Though the NCAA has decided ‘Fighting Sioux’ is derogatory, the NCAA supports the University of Illinois’ use of the name ‘Fighting Illini,’ and the use by Florida State University of the name ‘Seminoles’ along with the Seminole mascot – someone dressed in Native American attire who rides into the FSU stadium on a horse and throws a flaming spear before every home football game,” said Soderstrom. “The NCAA claims these are not derogatory depictions because the Illini people and the Seminole people approve of the use of the name and mascot. Inexplicably, the NCAA fails to accept the tribal vote and the sacred religious ceremony as endorsements of the name ‘Fighting Sioux’ by the North Dakota Sioux Nation.”