Welcome to Sports Illustrated’s College Football Quarter-Century Week. We will look back at the past 25 seasons in college football, ranking the top 25 teams, quarterbacks, non-QB players, coaches, games and scandals. Up next: The top scandals and controversies from 2000 to present.
1. Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal at Penn State
In many ways, this redefined what truly constitutes a scandal in college athletics given how wide-ranging and horrific Jerry Sandusky’s actions were in State College, Pa. The former Nittany Lions defensive coordinator was convicted on 45 counts of child sexual abuse that covered decades of his tenure. News reports about the discovery of these crimes led to the firings (and in some cases further charges) of several key figures at Penn State from school president Graham Spanier to athletic director Tim Curley. Joe Paterno, who had become the winningest coach in college football history, was fired and saw much of his on-field legacy overshadowed by allowing Sandusky to remain a part of the program despite reports of his actions. The NCAA levied unprecedented sanctions in the case as well, some of which were later rescinded.
2. Baylor sexual assault scandal under Art Briles
Multiple football players were accused and convicted of sexual assault over the course of several years, many of which were known to school officials and either not reported or covered up. The school already had a difficult history in this area and the string of allegations eventually led to the firing of football coach Art Briles (who remains blackballed from major coaching jobs), the dismissal of school president Ken Starr, the resignation of AD Ian McCaw and several others. As a private university, many details remained under wraps but what did become known through the courts and other reports still leaves a stain on what had been one of the most successful eras on the football field.
3. The destruction of the Pac-12
The Pac-12 will be reconstituted beginning in 2026 with new schools, but the conference of champions that had been the banner carrier for West Coast athletics for a century all but died in the latest round of realignment. Blame who you want, from commissioners Larry Scott and George Kliavkoff, to school presidents, to a difficult media environment. It remains an incredible shame that the league that gave us national champions, Heisman Trophy winners and some incredible moments on the football field is no longer around as we knew it. Life is fine (but difficult) for those programs that found homes in other power conferences while Washington State and Oregon State were forced to pick up the pieces from decades-long mismanagement.
4. Extra benefits and academic fraud at North Carolina
You know it’s bad when a scandal about extra benefits from sports agents to football players leads to a coach (Butch Davis) getting fired and then begets an even larger, more difficult academic fraud scandal that involves the rest of the university. The Tar Heels truly had it all from former Oklahoma head coach John Blake landing a show-cause order, the NCAA levying a bowl ban and several years of scholarship losses before a wide-ranging look into the Afro-American Studies department eventually led to North Carolina’s accreditation being questioned. A second NCAA infractions case was brought about but controversially came up empty in terms of punishments because students at the university as a whole, and not just athletes, benefited from no-show classes.
5. Connor Stalions’s sign-stealing at Michigan
The tail end of this scandal is still ongoing with a Committee on Infractions hearing just wrapped up this past summer. Still, everything about this story felt equally unbelievable and completely on brand for the craziness that college football breathes. Stalions was a Michigan staffer who reportedly purchased tickets for numerous people to attend games of Wolverines opponents and film their signals on the sideline. The former Navy officer would then utilize these stolen signs on game day to help Michigan, which went on to win the national title. The NCAA was forced to issue a rare statement about the information midseason and the Big Ten eventually suspended head coach Jim Harbaugh for three games. The resulting furor wound up helping fast track coach-to-player helmet communications and even produced a quickly assembled Netflix documentary.
6. Nevin Shapiro booster benefits at Miami
The Hurricanes booster was first convicted as part of a Ponzi scheme that earned him a 20-year federal prison sentence before he started to spill the beans on one of the biggest extra-benefits scandals that was incredible for its length, breadth and largesse in South Florida. Dozens of players got caught up in the resulting NCAA investigation which found everything from yacht trips to cash payments to wild parties and strip club visits that were paid for by Shapiro. Miami was hit with a lack of institutional control charge which brought about a bowl ban, scholarship cuts and a healthy dose of other recruiting restrictions while crippling the football team for several years.
7. NCAA sanctions USC over Reggie Bush
Just a few months after losing in the national title game, NCAA investigators started to look into the extra benefits Reggie Bush’s family received from budding sports marketers and agents, including a house. While there was tenuous evidence that the school knew about it, the NCAA hammered the Trojans with one of the stiffest sets of sanctions since SMU’s death penalty, including a two-year bowl ban and the loss of 30 scholarships. USC wound up cleaning house from the university level on down while head coach Pete Carroll left for the NFL before the penalties were announced. After becoming a national contender again during an incredible run on the field, the cardinal and gold really have never been the same.
8. Manti Te’o’s fake girlfriend
The Notre Dame linebacker was a household name as the Irish rose to prominence on the field but he really tugged at the heartstrings in interviews when mentioning that his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, died of leukemia in 2012 shortly after his grandmother had also died. Deadspin later reported Kekua was a fabrication created by another person, who catfished Te’o into a relationship online and over the phone. The latter learned about what really was happening shortly before finishing as a Heisman runner-up and playing in the national title game, but the resulting firestorm surrounding the hoax was attached to Te’o pretty much anytime his name came up.
9. Toomer’s Corner poisoned by Harvey Updyke
It’s tradition after a big Auburn football win to go roll the big oak trees around Toomer’s Corner and it was quite the scene after the Tigers beat rival Alabama in the 2010 Iron Bowl, one of the biggest games of the last 25 years. Tide fan Harvey Updyke did not take so kindly to the result of the game however and later confessed to what he did on Paul Finebaum’s show. “I poisoned the two Toomer’s trees. I put Spike 80DF in ’em. They’re not dead yet, but they definitely will die,” he said. The trees did indeed do that and were later replanted by the university while Updyke pleaded guilty to a felony charge and was ordered to pay restitution to Auburn. He died in ’20 but the saga surrounding his actions is attached to the Iron Bowl forever.
10. Bobby Petrino’s Harley crash
The greatest April Fool’s in college football came in 2012 when Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino lost control of his motorcycle, wound up in a ditch and needed a neck brace to treat one part of the multiple injuries he suffered. A news conference was arranged that allowed the head coach to try and prove how tough he was wound up biting him when it later came out that he lied and had been riding with an athletics department staffer he was having an affair with. Petrino was eventually fired for cause and had a meandering career that has now led him back to Fayetteville, Ark., as the Razorbacks offensive coordinator.
11. Hugh Freeze dials up a resignation at Ole Miss
Freeze guided the Rebels to a pair of BCS bowls and seemed to have the program humming when it all came crashing down thanks to another former Ole Miss head coach. The university had been tipped off on some of the calls Freeze made on his school cellphone by the lawyer for Houston Nutt—who was filing a defamation lawsuit against the school at the time. Officials discovered numerous calls when Freeze was traveling to numbers associated with female escorts or escort services, which led to the head coach resigning in July 2017 in a spectacular own goal. Freeze later rehabbed his image at Liberty and now is back in the SEC with rival Auburn.
12. LSU booster stealing money from a hospital for extra benefits
There are a few scandals that make you do a double take and one of them was after an LSU booster pleaded guilty in 2019 to embezzling a half-million dollars from a foundation that raised money for a local hospital. Among other things, the former CEO would submit vouchers for the foundation to pay that were labeled as medical expenses and other items for children’s hospital patients, then in turn would use all that money to pay prominent players or their families. LSU later self-imposed a bowl ban and scholarship reductions while the NCAA eventually vacated several wins as part of the same infractions case.
13. Tattoogate
After the FBI started investigating a tattoo parlor in Columbus, Ohio, it was later discovered that several Ohio State players were trading team gear and memorabilia for tattoos or cash. Head coach Jim Tressel was informed about the arrangement over email but didn’t tell anybody at the school, which later came to light and led the program to suspend him in 2011—leading to university president Gordon Gee’s famous quip that, “I just hope [Tressel] doesn’t fire me!” The NCAA became involved and Tressel eventually resigned on Memorial Day, was given a five-year show-cause penalty and the Buckeyes were issued a bowl ban in ’12. Luke Fickell served as interim coach in ’11 before the school hired Urban Meyer, who went undefeated but couldn’t play for the Big Ten or national title as a result of the postseason ban from the scandal that looks quite quaint in the NIL era.
14. Auburn’s Cam Newton caper
After leaving Florida and leading Blinn College to a juco national title, Cam Newton was a hot prospect who many programs around the SEC were clamoring to sign in the fall of 2009. Newton’s father, Cecil, reportedly sought out a six-figure payment for the quarterback’s signature and a former Mississippi State player attempted to arrange such a deal. An NCAA investigation sprouted out of the dealings and was woven fully into the fabric of Auburn’s season, leading to a few times where the signal-caller actually became ineligible but was quickly reinstated. It hovered over the Tigers well past their BCS triumph and remains a notable part of their story all while the banner continues to hang proudly on the Plains.
15. WakeyLeaks
This could have been a bigger deal had it not involved one of the smallest programs in FBS in Wake Forest, but it was nevertheless hard to believe. Former Demon Deacons QB turned radio analyst Tommy Elrod had access to inside information about the team and their plays and apparently leaked it all to several opponents dating back to 2014. He was formerly a coach on staff with the school but reportedly was out for revenge against Dave Clawson’s program after not being retained. The scandal went public once a playbook was discovered in a game against Louisville and the ACC eventually handed out fines as a result, which were a little more limited thanks to Wake’s quick actions.
16. Mike Price and George O’Leary blow dream jobs
We’ll combine this into a 2-for-1 of self-inflicted scandals. Price was fresh off leading Washington State to two Rose Bowls in six years and was hired by Alabama to replace Dennis Franchione in 2002. He wound up lasting just four months in Tuscaloosa, Ala., after a trip to Florida—involving a strip club, room service and a woman who was not his wife—cost him the gig. The year prior, O’Leary left Georgia Tech to go to Notre Dame. However, the coach submitted a résumé claiming to have earned a master’s degree from a fictional university after other information about his background surfaced as being false as well. He quickly resigned from the Irish after everything came to light and never again got a sniff of a marquee gig.
17. Auburn’s JetGate
If you wondered why some Auburn boosters’ names became well-known two decades ago, JetGate surely played a role. Tommy Tuberville was in charge of the Tigers but a few key figures around the program wanted to replace him with Petrino, then the head coach at Louisville. A secret meeting was arranged and a few Auburn folks flew on a private jet to meet with Petrino, a fact that eventually got out and made all involved look bad. The athletic director was eventually fired while Tuberville remained and later led the team to an undefeated season in 2004.
18. Jeremy Pruitt’s fast food payoffs
Pruitt spent three middling years as Tennessee’s coach (going 16–19 overall) but was fired in January 2021 after an internal investigation found that the program had committed numerous recruiting and extra benefits violations. When NCAA investigators looked into the matter, Pruitt admitted he had given several hundred dollars to a recruit and his mother in a fast food bag—initially believed to be a McDonald’s bag but later confirmed by the coach to be a Chick-fil-A bag. The NCAA slapped a six-year show-cause penalty on the coach, who is still suing the association for $100 million.
19. Phillip Fulmer’s Albert Means–related SEC media days
Albert Means was a highly touted recruit from Memphis who initially signed with Alabama before it was revealed that a Tide booster had paid him roughly $150,000 to attend the school. Then the Tennessee head coach, Fulmer had reportedly detailed the scheme to NCAA investigators, who eventually brought a case against Bama. A former assistant coach caught up in the case sued the NCAA over the matter and Fulmer elected not to show up for SEC media days in 2004, appearing via teleconference instead to talk about the Vols. The image of dozens of microphones and TV cameras pointed at a landline telephone remains an enduring image of “Talking Season.” A few years later, a process server in a defamation lawsuit related to the Means case handed Fulmer a subpoena as he was getting out of his car at another set of media days. The head coach denied receiving one numerous times but later admitted he had been served.
20. Pat Fitzgerald ousted
Northwestern was about a month away from opening camp in 2023 when its longtime head coach was initially suspended for two weeks after a university report into allegations of hazing and potential sexual assaults. While it was acknowledged that hazing incidents involving the football team took place in the team locker room, it stopped short of pointing at any specific coaches. Numerous reports surfaced after that which pointed to a more widespread set of issues than the initial investigation first indicated, at which point the school turned around just days later and promptly fired Fitzgerald. He’s still suing the school, which is one of several lawsuits still pending against the program surrounding said events.
21. Nico Iamaleava sign-and-trade with UCLA
The Vols made a big splash in the NIL market when they first landed the five-star quarterback out of high school from California, which reports pegged as a multiyear deal worth roughly $8 million in total. Things seemed to be going to plan as Iamaleava led Tennessee to the College Football Playoff and a 10–3 season in 2024 but then spring practice rolled around. Just before the spring game, Iamaleava did not attend practice amid a dispute with the school that got labeled as a pay dispute. Tennessee coach Josh Heupel balked at giving into any demands and Iamaleava hit the transfer portal. He wound up at UCLA shortly afterwards while former Bruins QB Joey Aguilar wound up coming to Knoxville, Tenn., in what amounted to college football’s first holdout drama that turned into a sign-and-trade.
22. Jim Harbaugh’s cheeseburger violations
Jim Harbaugh and the NCAA had a very antagonistic relationship during the final few years of his time in Ann Arbor, Mich., but the original infractions case that ended with the coach receiving a four-year show-cause penalty was the root of most of it. The issue was Harbaugh meeting recruits at a local restaurant during the COVID-19 dead period in 2021 that barred such in-person interactions. The most striking detail to emerge was that Harbaugh met the recruits for breakfast but apparently ordered a cheeseburger for the meal. The head coach denied the interactions (and ordering that burger) but receipts acquired by investigators allowed them to hit Harbaugh with several violations and led to the school self-imposing a suspension of several games unrelated to his stint away from the sidelines for the sign-stealing saga.
23. Tennessee fan revolt over hiring Greg Schiano
In 2017 as Tennessee was looking for a new head coach, then-athletic director John Currie started to close in on hiring Ohio State defensive coordinator Greg Schiano—at one point even signing a M.O.U. with the coach late in the process. However, Vols fans felt less than impressed at the attempted hire and all but bought out the pitchforks, with right wing media figure Clay Travis among those encouraging the revolt after seizing upon the connection Schiano had to Penn State during the Sandusky era in State College. The school backed out of the deal, eventually saw Currie exit and had Fulmer come in to help hire … Pruitt instead.
24. Iowa players vs. their strength coach
Several Hawkeyes were hospitalized following workouts in 2011, with most being diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis (a rare condition when muscles break down and release proteins into the blood). Despite the incident and at least one lawsuit, strength coach Chris Doyle was kept around and went on to become one of the highest-paid off-field coaches in the country. Then, in ’20, allegations against Doyle were levied about his mistreatment of players over the years, including many complaints from Black players that he disparaged some of them and bullied others. The strength coach denied using any racist language but left the program as the reports just kept coming about his treatment of players.
25. Jaden Rashada’s recruitment
Before Iamaleava was the poster child for NIL disputes as a college player, a fellow five-star prospect from California was. Rashada had nearly every program in the country after him in 2022 and his recruitment was drama filled from the start. He was a longtime pledge to Miami but eventually flipped to rival Florida that December after signing an NIL deal with the Gators collective that reportedly ran north of $13 million over four years. The NCAA started poking around and was close to bringing a case before injunctions from lawsuits all but paused enforcement of early NIL rules. Still, Rashada asked to leave Gainesville, Fla., where he spent a season at Arizona State before making his way to Georgia. He transferred again this spring to Sacramento State and notably sued Florida and several others (including head coach Billy Napier) for backing out of the original deal in a case that is still making its way through the system.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as The Top 25 College Football Scandals of the Past 25 Years.