The Best 24 Hours of My Life

To many people, yesterday was just Wednesday. An ordinary weekday. But to me, and many other fans of college sports, the last hours of Tuesday and all day Wednesday were packed with interesting and exciting news regarding certain college programs who we happen to hate here at USF being investigated by the NCAA. Strangely enough, this great 24 hours has absolutely nothing to do with anything USF-related, and that's a good thing. Read more about the thrilling 24 hours after the jump.

Tuesday afternoon, reports surfaced that UCF football may be experiencing some serious setbacks related to the quarterback position:

As a USF fan, I was already doubling over in laughter at the fact that UCF only had one quarterback left for the 2011 season (For the record, I would never laugh at an ACL injury. That is an unfortunate circumstance for Calabrese and I wish him all the best in his recovery). With Jeff Godfrey the only QB left on the team, the Knights better hope he stays healthy all season.

But this great night really got moving at about 5:30 Tuesday evening. At that time, Yahoo! released an online article that may be galvanizing to the world of NCAA athletics. Investigative reporter Charles Robinson released his findings after a year of investigation into the University of Miami football and basketball programs. What he found was that Nevin Shapiro, who is now in federal prison for constructing a $930 million Ponzi scheme, supplied multiple illicit benefits for members of the UM football and basketball teams, including trips to strip clubs, prostitutes, and, on one occasion, an abortion. As you can imagine, I was thrilled to hear this news. I love when big programs that could never be legitimate get what they deserve (suck on that, Ohio State).

News and reports came down over the next few hours and into Wednesday morning that Miami's punishment could be severe. Like late-80s-SMU-caliber. It doesn't look good for Miami, which means it's a fun time here in Tampa. We of course wasted no time making fun of UM, but reports continued to surface. Now it became apparent that current coaches and players from Florida and Louisville were also linked to the Miami allegations. Aubrey Hill (WR coach), Andre DeBose (player), and Matt Pachan (player) from UF, and Clint Hurtt (assistant coach) from Louisville were all part of the Miami football program when Shapiro was allegedly in South Beach. Another name that surfaced was UCF's Jeffrey Godfrey. The same Godfrey who is now UCF's only hope at the QB position.

Naturally, I spent all of Wednesday in a great mood. Miami was in trouble, UCF was thin on their most important position, UF and Louisville were distracted. It was a good time to be a USF fan. But it wasn't over. Later that day I received a call from Matt asking if I had heard the news about UCF. When I got home I found this article waiting for me indicating that Central Florida will be under NCAA investigation for allegations that surfaced in February that there were impermissible recruiting violations by the UCF basketball and football programs. You can read the official letter from the NCAA here. Now, I'm no NCAA expert, but I think being a repeat offender to the NCAA is probably a bad thing to put on your resume if you're trying to get into a BCS conference. And I think George O'Leary knows a little something about making up resumes.

So now it's Thursday and all the excitement has settled, but the facts are still there. Miami is screwed, probably getting something close to a death penalty, and UCF will likely be sanctioned as a "repeat offender" by the NCAA, considering the fact that they are currently on probation from violations discovered in 2008. So the best 24 hours ever are over, but be sure that this won't be the last we hear about either of these cases.