(USA Today Sports Images)

This offseason we will count down various topics from Monday through Friday, bringing you the top five of the important and definitely some not so important issues in college football. It's the Doc Five, every week until we will thankfully have actual games to discuss.

PLAYERS WHO COULD KEEP JOHNNY MANZIEL FROM ANOTHER HEISMAN

NO. 1 AND 1A, TEDDY BRIDGEWATER AND MARCUS MARIOTA

When we go to a restaurant, we just order two dishes to avoid having to decide.

Honestly, we planned on going with Teddy Bridgewater for the top spot. But how can you pick him over Marcus Mariota? Then again, Bridgewater has to be the top candidate aside from Johnny Manziel to win the Heisman, right?

So we just picked both as the co-leaders in the race to knock off Manziel from his Heisman throne.

Bridgewater might be the most talented quarterback in college football, at least in NFL scouts' eyes. Bridgewater telling Louisville he doesn't want any part of a Heisman campaign, so the focus stays on his team, has sparked an interesting debate.

Our first reaction was that it was a fine gesture and Heisman campaigns are just aimed at lazy voters anyway. The Sporting News' Matt Hayes said he thought Bridgewater had "saved Louisville’s season and was

(@FSURich)The satire site SportsPickle.com had a great joke article the other day, titled "Brian Urlacher Retires as a Green Bay Packer: 'I just wanted to go out a winner.'"

If you understand or appreciate the Packers-Bears rivalry in the slightest, you know how funny and brilliant that is. And if you're basically any sane person, you also understand it was a joke.

Well, someone at NESN (New England Sports Network) didn't get it, which led to a joke on top of the original joke.

(USA Today Sports Images)
Last year Brian Kelly had a 12-0 regular season for Notre Dame. Charlie Weis, exiled from Notre Dame, went 1-11 with Kansas.

And in 2011 Weis made almost twice as much money as Kelly ... from Notre Dame.

This is why you shouldn't rush into silly contract extensions, kids.

According to the Chicago Tribune, which cited federal tax documents, Weis received another buyout payment of $2,054,744 from Notre Dame in 2011. During the same reporting period, Kelly got $1,088,179, although the Tribune points out that probably doesn't represent Kelly's total earnings that include external sources.

No matter, the story points out the absurdity of Weis' contract with Notre Dame. The Tribune reports that Weis is scheduled to keep getting buyout payments until Dec. of 2015, and that the total buyout should end up totaling $18,966,867 (and yes, Dr. Saturday is already preparing to copy and paste this post when we're writing about Iowa and Kirk Ferentz in a couple years).

Not sure about Weis, but his agent surely had a decided schematic advantage.

Weis, who received an initial payment of $6,638,403 after his firing according to the Tribune, serves as a cautionary tale.

Weis had five years remaining on his contract in 2005, when the school decided to renegotiate those five and add five more. That was during Weis' first season with the Irish. The 10-year extension turned out terribly for Notre Dame but pretty well for Weis, whose final three years with the Irish included a 3-9 season in 2007.

The next time a school thinks

Ray Small, an infamous name to Ohio State fans, sat in a chair being recorded on a cell-phone video and apologized repeatedly to everyone, especially those involved with Buckeyes football.

It's hard to imagine Ohio State fans will just forgive and forget Small being a big part of a scandal that led to Jim Tressel resigning and a bowl ban for the Buckeyes in 2012, but the video obviously showed Small is regretful for what he has done.

Small, a Buckeyes receiver from 2006-09, admitted in 2011 to The Lantern student newspaper that he sold memorabilia including Big Ten championship rings, and identified a car dealership as giving Buckeyes players special deals. That story intensified a growing scandal in which other players had been suspended for selling memorabilia to a local tattoo parlor. Tressel would resign a week later. As a result of NCAA sanctions from that scandal, a 12-0 Ohio State team was ineligible to play for a conference title or in a bowl game last season.

And Small is sorry for all of it.

In a rambling two-part video posted to YouTube (h/t to Eleven Warriors for pointing it out), Small sits in an office chair and continually apologizes. At one point he apologizes to his peers, his elders and young people, which should cover everyone. He talks about his upbringing, saying his father sold drugs, his mother worked three jobs and he was

(USA Today Sports Images)

This offseason we will count down various topics from Monday through Friday, bringing you the top five of the important and definitely some not so important issues in college football. It's the Doc Five, every week until we will thankfully have actual games to discuss.

PLAYERS WHO COULD KEEP JOHNNY MANZIEL FROM ANOTHER HEISMAN

NO. 2, TAJH BOYD

When Tajh Boyd announced he would forgo being part of a weak 2013 NFL draft class to come back to Clemson, he solidified his spot as one of the major threats to unseat Johnny Manziel for the Heisman Trophy.

Boyd has been a little underrated and overshadowed during his career, but that should change this year.

He has had two productive seasons as a starter, throwing for more than 3,800 yards each of the past two seasons, with 69 touchdown passes. He also ran for 514 yards and 10 touchdowns last season.

NFL.com's Daniel Jeremiah, a former scout and a great follow on Twitter, had a very accurate and complimentary comparison for Boyd:

Most college football teams have great traditions, but Clemson's two pregame routines stand out as among the best in the sport.

If you like Clemson, or are just antsy for the next three-plus months to pass so we have college football games again, the video above should give you more than a few chills (and don't complain South Carolina fans, we've already hooked you up with some Jadeveon Clowney videos this offseason).

The video from Clemson talks about the two main pregame routines at Clemson. First is rubbing Howard's Rock, a rock given to then-Clemson coach Frank Howard by Tigers alum S.C. Jones, who picked it up in Death Valley, Calif. That tradition started in 1967, and is still going strong today. No matter how many times you have seen it

(shop.soonersports.com)Unlike Kevin Ware T-shirts being sold to profit off his horrible injury, this is an apparel sales idea that is easy to support.

Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Tulsa are teaming up on T-shirts to help benefit the victims of the tornadoes that caused massive damage in the state. At $19.99, the shirts bear the logos of the three major schools in the state with the phrase "OK Together" at the top. Proceeds will go to The United Way.

The link to buy one from the Oklahoma team store is here.

Here was the description of the shirt from Oklahoma's site:

It’s the Oklahoma Standard. In times of need, our communities rally around each other with an outpouring of love and compassion. As a Cowboy, Hurricane and Sooner fan, you can do your part to help the Oklahomans that have been affected by the recent devastation by supporting those in need with this 2013 Disaster Relief Efforts tee. All proceeds from the sale of each tee will go to The United Way for disaster relief efforts in the affected areas to further the movement of recovery and restoration.

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SBNation's Patrick Vint had a great find, as he wrote about how Tim Tebow's name was actually used for a play call in NCAA Football 10, a game by EA Sports.

Now, that last sentence might not seem like a big deal to you. But it contradicts one of the key arguments being set forth by the NCAA and EA Sports in a very important lawsuit brought by former UCLA basketball player Ed O'Bannon.

O'Bannon's suit claims that the NCAA used the likenesses of players to sell things like DVDs and video games made by EA Sports, and players didn't make anything off it. The NCAA and EA Sports tries to get around that by saying that no player names are used. Anyone who has played the games will tell you that when "QB #16" for Michigan has the exact same attributes as Denard Robinson (and is playing in an exact video game replica of Michigan Stadium, in an exact replica of the Michigan uniform), for example, it's pretty clear that player on the screen is supposed to be Denard Robinson. But EA Sports and the NCAA kept saying no names were used.

But apparently the highest profile name in college football the past few years was inserted into the game a few years ago, which makes that argument even more dubious than it already was.

As SBNation wrote, it took some digging to find Tebow's name on one of the plays (the sixth and seventh plays listed on the image at the top), but one of their readers did it and the site confirmed it:

While the full formation name is shortened during gameplay, the full title is revealed in the Game Prep feature in Dynasty mode. The formation, with the quarterback in the shotgun and two running backs placed two yards ahead of him, was a formation commonly used by Florida during