College football Week 12 report card: Missouri's Eli Drinkwitz gets A for trolling Florida's Dan Mullen

Welcome to Week 12’s edition of the report card. It’s good to be back after a quick sabbatical and we thank Mr. Bumbaca for filling in while being away.  

As the final weeks of the college football season descend upon us, teams have little margin for error and thus will get hammered when the performance does not meet the Report Card standards.

Remember as always, there is no grading on a curve here, so failing marks have zero chance for being reversed and passing ones are handed out less frequently. (Again, reminding people that emails and complaint tweets will be deleted).

Last week’s low marks went to Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley whining about sportsmanship, Indiana fans not realizing how bad it is to lose to Rutgers at home, while high grades went to a pair of walk-off Hail Marys and the Texas Tech radio crew for an enthusiastic call after a 62-yard field goal to beat Iowa State.

So here is the Week 12 analysis of how fans, teams, players and coaches fared:

Serving cupcakes

Check out this menu that was on the slate for Saturday. Prairie View A&M at Texas A&M, Charleston Southern at Georgia, Wofford at North Carolina, Tennessee State at Mississippi State and for an appetizer in the highest order of FBS vs. FBS crime, New Mexico State took its lumps against Kentucky. (Ohio State-Michigan State definitely bordered on NSFW)

What do these games have in common, except that they are absolutely unwatchable? It’s an annual tradition in some parts that instead of playing conference games in a crucial time of the year, they take one week to have an extra 60-minute scrimmage.

It’s fine to schedule these games in September when the season is starting and the attention span is near zero. These cupcakes earn big paydays for their athletic departments, which makes the school shelling out sometimes millions to play inferior opponents either out of touch with the times or downright insane.

In this season of giving, the haves are Santa Claus and the have-nots are the charity case.

Luckily, there were other games to feast on during the weekend, so it wasn’t all a lost cause.

Red velvet, chocolate or vanilla: F

Do or do not. There is no try

Last year on Halloween, Florida coach Dan Mullen celebrated a 41-17 victory over Missouri by breaking out a Darth Vader costume at his press conference, in a game that included a benches-clearing brawl at halftime. Cute, but these days, Mullen has much more to worry about than his postgame attire.

Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz has a great memory and sense of humor because after the Tigers dispatched the Gators 24-23 in overtime on Saturday to reach bowl eligibility, the troll in Drinkwitz came and showed out. 

Before leaving the podium, Jedi Drinkwitz pulled the hood on his sweatshirt over his head and donned a lightsaber before quenching his thirst with a Diet Coke (apparently the drink of choice in Tatooine) and exiting stage left. 

May the buyout be with you: A

Bourbon Street steak on the menu

Remember when the almighty NCAA was on its high horse telling “student-athletes” they weren’t allowed to profit off their own name, essentially acting like a schoolyard bully stealing people’s lunch money every day?

Now that the organization that was so keen on preserving amateurism is virtually irrelevant for 46 weeks of the year, collegiate athletes have a chance to make it rain and cash in on whatever talent they have in order to squeeze the most out of their earning potential while they can.

One such athlete is Kansas redshirt freshman walk-on tight end Jared Casey. Casey’s claim to fame is catching a game-winning two-point conversion against Texas last week, sending the Longhorns program and fan base further into the abyss of irrelevancy.

Casey, who hadn’t played on offense all season until the Texas game, turned his “One Shining Moment” into a deal with Applebee’s and also one with a local car dealership. He also scored $800 and gift cards totaling $1,000.

This is what college athletics should be about, having fun and being able to experience things that every other American has opportunities to do. As Casey said in the commercial, “Hey, you always gotta go for two."

This earns the highest of marks from the Report Card, while the NCAA has earned the distinction of permanent expulsion.

Fancy like Jared: A+

Tee it up

Kicking tee retrieval is one of the most nondescript things you will see during any football game. But when lovable animals or enthusiastic humans are involved, it's a sight to behold.

During the Houston-Memphis contest on Friday, Houston's student equipment manager, aka "Stone Cold Big Hawk," took it to a whole new level. 

Watch below after a Houston kickoff as Big Hawk sprints out on the field, does a tumble that would impress most Olympic judges, grabs the tee, heads back to the sideline where he does another tumble with the style of Mary Lou Retton or Simone Biles. Gold medal-winning stuff if you ask me.

High scores all around for the attempt and the tremendous mullet. 

I'll tumble for ya: A

Participation trophy

Let's scroll back a few years when someone, who probably didn't have anything better to do (in this case, former UConn coach Bob Diaco) thought that Central Florida and UConn would turn into some kind of heated rivalry and thus a trophy was created to celebrate such nonsense. 

While the fans of Ohio State-Michigan, Alabama-Auburn, and Oklahoma-Texas put that idea on a continuous laugh track, the ugliness of the trophy and the stupidity of it reared its ugly head again on Saturday.

The Huskies, who haven't had a winning season since 2010, were routed 49-17 by UCF and continue to look more like a bad FCS team than an FBS squad. 

Non-existent ConFLiCT: D-

The Dark Knight speaks

Officiating calls, usually egregious ones, tend to leave a bitter taste in the mouth of those who end up on the wrong side of the call. A month ago, Harvard lost to Princeton in five overtimes in a game, Ivy League officials admit, they should have won.

Two days after the game, Harvard tight end Adam West gave athletic director Erin McDermott a piece of his mind in a way someone who is 6-7 and is no doubt a superhero can only deliver. Since McDermott failed to heed the bat signal and contact him directly but instead came out with this statement, West released this beauty on social media after the Crimson beat Yale on Saturday.

The call ended up being a moot point when the smoke cleared as Harvard lost the very next week to Dartmouth and finished third in the league standings. 

Holy NCAA Rule 5-2-9, Batman: B

Extra credit

Quick shoutouts to Georgia defensive lineman Jordan Davis and Oklahoma defensive lineman Jalen Redmond for their Big Man touchdowns on Saturday. 

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