Jamie Mottram put together a list of the top sports figures of 2006. Here's the College Football Fanhouse's ballot. Note that this was before BCS DISASTRO 2006(!).
1. Troy Smith. I'm a Michigan fan. I don't want to talk about it.
2. Greg Schiano. Rutgers Stadium experienced a succession of dull walkovers of the home team until Enter the Schiano. Rutgers may have bonked away its incredible national championship shot with a dismal loss at Cincinnati, but for one night Schiano gave Rutgers and the entire metro New York area a powerful introduction to the majesty of college football.
3. Larry Coker. The flipside of Schiano, Coker proved that he was a very classy man in his firing press conference, but I'd still mace the crap out of him if he came within 100 yards of my favorite program. Miami's gradual decline over the course of the Coker era spurred sporadic hotseat mumbles at the beginning of the year; in the aftermath of two disgraceful displays of sportsmanship, the tragic murder of Brian Pata, and a 6-6 season that will end against some anonymous foe in a bowl named after car parts or pesticides or something his firing went from a distant possibility to a fait accompli.
4. Darren McFadden. At some point during the season it became apparent to Arkansas that their best quarterback was a tailback, so they often deployed McFadden as such. He ran over, around, and through helpless SEC foes as Arkansas rose from the ashes to the SEC title game largely on McFadden's impossibly broad and fast shoulders. Equally impossible compatriots Felix Jones and Marcus Monk also aided the cause, but McFadden is the man that makes the Razorbacks go, and go they do.
5. Jeff Bowden. By the end, he had become a watchword of coaching incompetency. Whenever you saw a quarterback throw a hopeless jump ball forty yards downfield, you thought of Bowden. Whenever you saw a running back with 6 YPC on ten carries, you thought of Bowden. Whenever you saw a power conference team trailing Troy in the fourth quarter... well, that only happened to Bowden. Call me EBay, I guess.
6. Reggie Nelson. I love Reggie Nelson. I love his dreadlocks, his impossibly deep pass drops, and his tendency to separate tooth from jaw whenever a receiver is foolish enough to approach the Reggie Nelson Demilitarized Zone, which extends from the deep middle of the field to Pyongyang. Fear him. Love him.
7. Lamarr Woodley. Until the shred-job applied by #1 on this list, which I still do not want to talk about, Woodley was the feature star on the baddest defense in the land. While other players had more stats, none had the terrifying impact on opposing offenses Woodley did.
8. PatSteve WhiteSlaton. It has four arms, four legs, two heads, one ball and ran for how many yards?
9. Calvin Johnson. God... what a tragedy that the most electric, incredible receiver in years was saddled with a midget quarterback who completed 45% of his passes. By the end of the year, the entire country was pissed off at Reggie Ball for turning Johnson into a freakish, ignored sideshow.
10. Brent Musberger. The road to Glendale is paved with Trojans, indeed.
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