College football is a beautiful, chaotic sport filled with unforgettable victories—and some truly jaw-dropping faceplants.
It's honestly why we love it so much: Anything can happen on any given Saturday.
Whether it's a coach losing all concept of clock management, a program making a head-scratching move, or a player turning into a meme for all the wrong reasons, the sport has delivered plenty of “what were they thinking?” moments.
So in honor of April Fool’s Day, let’s tip our hats to the 10 biggest "fools" in college football history, and remember, it's all in good fun.
10. Bo Pelini’s Postgame Blowups
Bo Pelini won nine games every year at Nebraska—and still got run out of town. Why? Well, the winning was fine, but the sideline rage, the off-field rants, and the leaked audio of him torching the fanbase probably didn’t help.
Pelini had the energy of a guy who could’ve led a team to greatness or snapped a clipboard in half at any moment. He chose chaos on far too many occasions.
It's interesting to think what might have been able to transpire with Pelini if he had just been able to keep his emotions in check.
9. Rutgers Joining the Big Ten (2014)
Rutgers wanted money, relevance, and exposure when they joined the Big Ten. What they got was a decade of irrelevance and a front-row seat to Ohio State beating them by 50 every year.
They’re basically that kid who transferred schools hoping to become popular, only to realize the new school has way tougher classes and nobody sits with them at lunch.
The move made sense on a spreadsheet. Just not… on a football field. Rutgers will continue to benefit from that massive Big Ten package — at least until the new world order of college football comes through and teams are paid based off their own individual television ratings — but Rutgers is never going to be a winning brand.
8. Brian Kelly’s Southern Accent (2021)
In one of the most uncomfortable moments in recent memory, Brian Kelly arrived at LSU and immediately tried to blend in—by rolling out a painfully awkward fake Southern accent during a basketball game.
“I’m here with mah fam-uh-lay,” he said, as the entire state of Louisiana side-eyed each other like, what did we just hire?
LSU was doomed from the start in this era when Brian Kelly went with the fake southern accent, never ever forget pic.twitter.com/bHh0sX6EUh
— Alex Micheletti (@AlexMicheletti) September 4, 2023
The accent disappeared almost instantly, but the cringe? It still makes its way around the internet from time to time.
7. USC Firing Lane Kiffin on the Tarmac (2013)
Still one of the pettiest firings ever. USC loses to Arizona State, and before Lane Kiffin can even grab his AirPods off the team bus, he’s pulled aside and axed. On the tarmac. At the airport.
No call. No meeting. Just straight to the point.
It was peak drama, perfectly USC, and instantly legendary. Of course, even though that was more than 10 years ago, USC has yet to regain its status as a legitimate national contender.
6. The Entire Les Miles Clock Management Era
You never knew what Les Miles was going to do with the clock. Call a timeout too early. Not call one at all. Decide to throw the ball when the team simply needed to run the clock.
He won games, sure. But he also turned every fourth quarter into a surrealist painting and, in some cases, cost LSU games because of his clock management skills, or should we say, lackthereof.
Les was a national champion—and also a master of looking like he had never watched a clock in his life.
5. Butch Jones Declaring Tennessee “Champions of Life” (2016)
After blowing the SEC East, Butch Jones gave us the most unintentionally hilarious quote in recent memory:
“We’re building champions of life," he said.
Tennessee would finish 9-4 that season and Jones would be fired a little more than a year later in November of 2017.
Fans wanted SEC titles. He gave them life lessons. Vol Twitter still hasn’t recovered.
4. Miami’s 2023 Knee-Gate vs. Georgia Tech
This one still hurts to watch.
Up 20-17 with the game locked up, all Mario Cristobal had to do was take a knee. Instead, Miami ran the ball, fumbled, and lost the game 23-20 on a last-second bomb. The worst part? Cristobal had done the exact same thing at Oregon years earlier.
Once is a mistake. Twice? That’s legacy-defining foolishness.
3. The Big 12 Letting Texas and Oklahoma Walk (2021)
Technically, Texas and Oklahoma left on their own and there may not have been anything the conference could do about it. But the Big 12 seemed genuinely surprised that the two biggest brands wanted out.
By the time the league stopped infighting and reorganized, the SEC had already built a Death Star.
What would've happened if the Big 12 had agreed to unequal revenue share? Perhaps that wouldn't have made a different, but just letting Texas and Oklahoma walk seemed to be the end.
The Big 12 eventually found its footing—but the moment it let its two cash cows slip away without a fight? Foolish.
2. Texas Declaring “We’re Back” (2018… and 2019… and 2020…)
You knew this one was coming. After beating Georgia in the 2019 Sugar Bowl, Texas QB Sam Ehlinger grabbed the mic and confidently declared:
“We’re baaaack.”
Spoiler alert: they were not.
Since then, “Texas is back” has become college football’s most recycled punchline. Every close win, every hot start, every promising freshman QB gets the same treatment—only for the Longhorns to go 8-4 and lose to Kansas or something equally depressing.
To be fair, Texas might actually be back now that they've moved to the SEC and have the benefit of the NIL era — which has greatly improved the overall talent of the program. But after six straight years of false alarms, the phrase lost all meaning.
Steve Sarkisian seems to be building something at Texas and the Longhorns have made back-to-back playoff appearances, but they've still yet to get over the hump and win a national championship, even with the distinct financial advantage that they have over essentially the rest of the nation. Even if they are back now, it doesn't stop anyone from pointing out how foolish those narratives were a half-decade and more ago.
1. Nebraska Leaving the Big 12 (2011)
This is the king of self-sabotage.
In the Big 12, Nebraska had history, rivalries, recruiting pipelines, and a path to contention. In the Big Ten, they have… snow, empty trophy cases, and a weekly existential crisis.
Sure, the move made some financial sense. But from a football standpoint? The Huskers left relevance and haven’t been able to find their way back since.
They used to play for national titles. Now, getting to 6-6 is cause for celebration.
Just like Rutgers, Nebraska is still getting that Big Ten money and their brand is big enough that they won't be left behind, but you've got to wonder what kind of success on the field Nebraska could've still had if they stayed in the Big 12 and didn't make that leap. Honestly, it might would've been enough to keep Texas and Oklahoma around and, in return, that might've meant that we still have a true Power-4 or Power-5 right now, rather than a Power-2.