Let’s all take a minute to bid a fond farewell to Cameron Cameron. Sixteen games, one win, and memories that will last a lifetime. That is to say, his tenure will be something Dolphins fans won’t soon forget.

In any case, Cameron’s firing was probably set in stone the moment Bill Parcells was hired, and it’s probably for the best. But consistency among key personnel in the NFL is crucial to winning, and the Dolphins have been a model of inconsistency since Don Shula and Dan Marino left town. In 33 years from Shula’s first season in 1970 until Miami’s last playoff appearance in 2001, the Dolphins had two losing seasons. Since then, their record is 39-57.

The coach Parcells tabs to replace Cameron will be Miami’s fifth in the past five years, and the sixth since Shula retired after 27 years as head coach. Here’s the list:

Jimmy Johnson (1996-99) finished 36-21.
Dave Wannstedt (2000-04) finished 42-31.
Jim Bates (2004) finished 3-4.
Nick Saban  (2005-06) finished 15-17.
Cameron (2007) finished 1-15.

And then let’s look at the quarterback position – the coach on the field, if you will. The Dolphins have started 11 different quarterbacks since they last made the playoffs in 2001. Here are the ugly results:

Jay Fielder (28 starts, 32 TDs, 30 interceptions)
Ray Lucas (6, 4 and 6)
Brian Griese (5, 5 and 6)
A.J. Feeley (8, 11 and 13)
Sage Rosenfels (2, 5 and 6)
Gus Frerotte (15, 18 and 13)
Joey Harrington (11, 12 and 15)
Daunte Culpepper (4, 2 and 3)
Cleo Lemon (8, 8 and 7)
Trent Green (5, 5 and 7)
John Beck (4, 1 and 3)

Beck’s poor performance down the stretch in 2007 makes him anything but a sure thing, despite being drafted in the early second round last year, which means QB No. 12 is likely waiting in the wings at any moment. Of course, draft-day blunders are nothing new for the Dolphins either. Of the 58 players drafted or acquired using their draft picks between 1998-2003, not one is on the Dolphins’ 53-man roster today. And only 13 of those players are in the NFL at all. Not hard to figure why they are so bad.

All of this adds up to one important thing: The hiring of 37-year-old Jeff Ireland as GM, and whomever is selected as the next head coach need to work out. The errors of the past have put Parcells in a situation where he can’t afford a mistake. A foundation has to be laid for the future right now.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

As expected, this has been far from a great bowl season. Florida-Michigan was probably the match-up I was most intrigued by, and not surprisingly, it has probably been the best game. Of all the bigger bowl games, the vast majority have played out exactly how I expected, and more than a handful have been blowouts. That, of course, is what happens when you put teams in BCS games that have no business being there.

Of all the games so far, I think Wednesday night’s Fiesta Bowl was the most surprising. I didn’t see West Virginia putting up much of a fight in what was a clear let-down scenario (blown chance at a national title, coach skips town). But here’s the thing about bowl season that is always easy to forget: Your last game was more than a month ago!

When we make predictions, we naturally tend to use the past as precedent. But really, bowl season might as well be a whole new year in college football. Teams have had anywhere from three to six weeks to get healthy, to prepare and, in some cases, to get awfully rusty.

Players have finals. There are distractions. You’re travelling, you’re playing teams from conferences you never play, you’re surrounded by fun, excitement and lots of media coverage. Coaching changes abound – and even head coaches not bolting this time of year are often looking to replace assistants who are moving on. And with signing day just a few weeks away, recruiting even steals much of the coaching staff’s attention. It just isn’t the same as the regular season in any way whatsoever.

But as the old baseball saying goes, speed never goes into a slump. And the teams with the most speed often find the most success in bowl season. Florida showed how much speed can kill against a rusty Ohio State last year – a typical outcome for the lightning quick SEC teams. And there may not be a faster team in the country than West Virginia, which is why no one should be shocked by the Fiesta Bowl outcome.

-- On the other side of the coin, there’s Oklahoma. Bob Stoops is widely considered one of the top coaches in college football, and he certainly has the resume to go along with such a reputation. But in the Sooners’ last five bowl games, they’re just 1-4, with their only win a 17-14 victory over Oregon in the Holiday Bowl. Their four losses were all in BCS Bowl games – two for the national championship – and three have been embarrassing to say the least.

Combined, Oklahoma has been outscored 181-120 in its last five bowl games. The Sooners lost by 20 to a reeling West Virginia team. They lost to a heavy longshot in Boise State last year – a game the Broncos dominated for three quarters. They were blown out by USC in 2004 in one of the most embarrassing national title defeats in recent memory. In all three of those games, the defense allowed more than 40 points.

Not saying Stoops isn’t still a great coach, but those kinds of numbers would have a lot of other coaches on the hot seat.

-- The long break between the regular season and bowl season is even longer (in terms of shenanigans) for Heisman winners. The hype that surrounds the award means parties, TV appearances and plenty of distractions, and all that has been obvious when it comes time to get back down to business recently.

In the past seven years, Heisman winners are just 2-5 in their bowl games (only USC quarterbacks have had success) and their stats in those games have hardly lived up to their regular season honors.

2001: Eric Crouch. Completed just 5 of 15 passes for 62 yards, threw one touchdown and tossed two picks (one of which was returned for a touchdown) and had another crucial fumble that set up a score in Miami’s 37-14 Rose Bowl win.

2002: Carson Palmer. Completed 21 of 31 passes for 303 yards and a touchdown in a monster 38-17 win in the Orange Bowl.

2003: Jason White. Completed 13 of 37 passes for 102 yards and two picks as LSU earned a national championship by beating Oklahoma 21-14 in the Sugar Bowl.

2004: Matt Leinart. Completed just a shade over 50 percent of his passes (18 of 35) but it didn’t matter. Leinart threw for 332 yards and five touchdowns in a 55-19 route of Oklahoma for Orange Bowl win and a national championship.

2005: Reggie Bush. Bush had a decent enough game (82 rushing yards, 95 receiving yards and a touchdown) but it was his backfield counterpart, LenDale White, who really cleaned house racking up 124 yards and three scores, and Bush’s lack of a break-out game may have been the difference in USC’s 41-38 loss in the Rose Bowl to Texas.

2006: Troy Smith. This may be the archetype for bad bowl games by a Heisman winner. Four completed passes in 14 attempts for just 35 yards and a pick. Needless to say, Florida destroyed Ohio State 41-14.

2007: Tim Tebow. The dual threat didn’t really do much damage with his arms or his legs. Tebow added fuel to the argument that he plays his worst in the biggest games, completing just 17 of 33 passes (albeit including three touchdowns) and ran for just 57 yards on 16 carries as Michigan had no trouble handling the ground game. Florida lost 41-35.

-- Checking in on the conference records in bowl games, here’s what we’ve got so far:

Sun Belt: 1-0 (nice work Florida Atlantic!)
Mountain West: 4-1
SEC: 6-2
Pac-10: 4-2
Big 12: 5-3
Big East: 3-2
Big Ten: 3-4
ACC: 2-6
WAC: 1-3
C-USA: 1-4
MAC: 0-2
Independents: 0-1

So what have we learned from all this? Well, probably not much. Again, the bowl season is such a crapshoot, it’s hard to say these games really tell us much about the teams or conferences. Still, some things here are worth noting:

The SEC’s two losses are a seven-point blunder by Florida against Michigan and an Arkansas team without its head coach being routed by a team that should have been in a BCS game. Pending LSU’s likely win over Ohio State, I think it’s safe to say that once again the numbers show the SEC is the nation’s top conference.

The Michigan win was huge for the Big Ten (otherwise the conference could be looking at a 2-6 record if Ohio State loses), but it doesn’t absolve the conference of the criticism it received throughout the year. Illinois looked like it didn’t belong on the same field with USC – and Illinois was the team that beat Ohio State earlier this year. Penn State barely edged a dreadful Texas A&M team that was without a head coach, and Purdue allowed 48 points to a MAC team in a three-point win. The Wolverines – perhaps the year’s biggest disappointment – was really the only Big Ten team to impress during the bowl games.

Last year’s darlings in the Big East have been anything but impressive this year, with UConn getting spanked by a marginal ACC team and South Florida allowing 56 points to an Oregon team that had been completely inept on offense since Dennis Dixon’s injury. The West Virginia win was impressive, but I think everyone already agreed the Mountaineers were head and shoulders above the rest of the Big East. It was those other teams that had something to prove.

When the Big East lost Boston College, Miami and Virginia Tech to the ACC in 2004 (B.C. actually followed in 2005) it was expected that the Big East would fall apart as a football conference, while the ACC would finally be ready to play with the big boys. Instead, the Big East has posted a 11-8 (.579) bowl record since then, including a 3-1 mark in BCS games, to the ACC's 14-16 record (.467) in bowls.

The ACC has gone 0-4 in its BCS games since stealing three of the Big East's annual football powers, too. The biggest bowl victory for the conference since 2004 was Virginia Tech's 35-24 win over 19th-ranked Louisville in the 2005 Gator Bowl.

West Virginia was the only one of six teams with an interim coach to win its bowl game. Of course, the Mountaineers hired Bill Stewart full time the next day, so his interim tag was nominal only.

I guess the WAC really was as bad as people said this year. Boise State looked bad, and Hawaii had no business even stepping on the same field with Georgia.

Congrats to the Mountain West. The MWC is a late rally by Cal away from a perfect 5-0 bowl record. This conference is routinely underappreciated.

And after watching the BCS games Tuesday and Wednesday, I’ll add this: Look out for USC, Georgia and West Virginia next year. All three teams return the majority of their starters, and only Fernando Velasco (UGA), John David Booty (USC), Fred Davis (USC) and Owen Schmidt (West Virginia) rank as guys who will be terribly difficult to replace.

As for wrapping up this year:

With all the time off, some people have nothing better to do than think up reasons Ohio State will win the national title. It’s not gonna happen. LSU is the better team. LSU is from the better conference. LSU is bigger, stronger, faster and has played more recently. And most importantly, this is basically a home game for the Tigers. The loss won’t be as bad for Ohio State as last year’s title game, but it won’t be pretty either. PREDICTION: LSU 31, Ohio State 17.

AROUND THE NFL

-- Here’s an interesting fact: The past 41 regular-season passing leaders in the NFL have failed to win the Super Bowl. Guess who led the league in passing this year? Um, some guy named Brady.

In fact, only three quarterbacks who led the NFL in passing even made it to the Super Bowl: Dan Marino (1984), Kurt Warner (2001) and Rich Gannon (2002). Meanwhile, 15 of them didn’t even make the playoffs (the last of which was Steve Beuerlein with Carolina in ’99).

Maybe there is something to this defense-and-a-running-game-wins-championships thing.

-- I failed to win any of my three fantasy leagues. Again. I swear, fantasy football is 90 percent luck and 10 percent owning Tom Brady or LaDanian Tomlinson.

Case in point: ASM’s 2007 Fantasy Football winner: Mr. Jon Bellwood. Congrats to Jon, who beat me in our league’s title game, no thanks to Donald Lee, Mason Crosby and the Arizona defense. Way to let Chris Redman shred you, guys. Nice effort.

I finished 8-6 in another league and missed the playoffs and 5-11 in yet another league, also missing the playoffs. And yet I still thought I had a good team in both. That’s how it goes, I guess.

-- Speaking of fantasy, here’s my early prediction for how next year’s fantasy drafts should look:

1.    Tomlinson
2.    Adrian Peterson
3.    Brady
4.    Brian Westbrook
5.    Joseph Addai
6.    Randy Moss
7.    Steven Jackson
8.    Peyton Manning
9.    Marshawn Lynch
10.    Darren McFadden (unless he ends up sharing backfield duties somewhere)

-- And how about the real draft, you ask? Here are my early thoughts:

1.    Miami – Glenn Dorsey, DT-LSU. Although they’re more likely to trade down.
2.    St. Louis – Jake Long, OT-Michigan. Look what happened when Orlando Pace went down this year. And Pace isn’t getting any younger.
3.    Atlanta – Matt Ryan, QB-Boston College. Bye-bye Petrino, and so long Brian Brohm. Ryan is the most NFL-ready QB in the draft, and that’s clearly the direction Atlanta is going.
4.    Kansas City  -- Chris Long, DE-Virginia. The Chiefs have plenty of needs, but the havoc Long and Jared Allen would cause on the D-line is enough to give AFC West coaches nightmares just thinking about it.
5.    Oakland – Darren McFadden, RB-Arkansas. Oakland has plenty of needs, particularly along the offensive and defensive lines, but McFadden could be an immediate difference maker the way Peterson was in Minnesota this year.
6.    Jets – Sedrick Ellis, DT-USC. Physical play is how you keep pace with New England, and Ellis is plenty physical. The Jets D could be a quick fix with an addition like Ellis. Then they just need to pray Kellen Clemens knows how to play QB.
7.    New England – James Laurinaitis, LB-Ohio State. Laurinaitis is a prototypical Bill Belichick player, and with aging LBs like Bruschi and Seau, the pick makes tons of sense.
8.    Baltimore – Brian Brohm, QB-Louisville. Tony Banks, Elvis Grbac, Randall Cunningham, Jeff Blake, Chris Redman, Anthony Wright, Kyle Boller, Steve McNair and Troy Smith. Welcome to the club, Mr. Brohm!
9.    Cincinnati – Michael Jenkins, CB-South Florida. Since Jenkins hasn’t been in jail, you might think he’s not Cincy’s type of player. But then you look at their 26th-ranked pass defense and think maybe he helps.
10.    New Orleans – Malcolm Jenkins, CB-Ohio State. The talk in New Orleans: “Can you cover a wide receiver? Yes? Great, we’ll take you.”

AND SOME QUICK HOF TALK

-- It’s that time of year when we debate who belongs in the Hall of Fame and who doesn’t. There probably won’t be much debate this year, as there aren’t many thrilling new candidates. I don’t see much new groundswell of support for Mark McGwire, which means that Goose Gossage and Jim Rice are probably your leading candidates for enshrinement.

Gossage I can get behind. After all, there’s no reason for Bruce Sutter to be in and Gossage not to be. But Rice is another story altogether. Did he have a few great seasons? Sure, but all the talk about how he was among the most feared hitters of the 1970s and 80s is absurd. So absurd, ESPN.com’s Rob Neyer didn’t have a hard time completely dispelling that notion in less than five paragraphs:

“Rice's 12 best seasons -- 1975-1986 -- are usually mentioned because the rest of his career was not good. Did Rice draw more intentional walks than anyone else over those 12 seasons? From 1975 through 1986 -- remember, that range of seasons has been chosen specifically to make Rice look his best -- 32 major leaguers drew more intentional walks than Jim Rice.

Yes, he batted right-handed, and right-handed batters generally are intentionally walked less often than left-handed batters. So let's be fair. Let's ignore all those left-handed batters. Did Rice draw more intentional walks than every other right-handed batter over those 12 fearsome seasons?

Twelve right-handed batters were, by this standard, more feared, including (but far from limited to) George Foster, Ron Cey, Greg Luzinski, Jack Clark and Dale Murphy.

I've run through other stats before. Even if we limit ourselves to Rice's 12 good years, we still find that he doesn't look good next to non-Hall of Famers Keith Hernandez and Fred Lynn and is dead even with Ken Singleton.”

It’s not even close, in my opinion.

Yet, for all the Rice supporters, no one seems to be stepping up to discuss Tim Raines or many of the other stars of the 1980s. I wrote a piece on Dale Murphy, Allan Trammell, Don Mattingly and Andre Dawson last year, and I’d still rather see any of those four in the Hall over Rice.

For what it’s worth, my ballot this year would look like this: Gossage, Bert Blyleven, Trammell and Dawson.

Plenty of folks argue that Blyleven was never great, what what they really mean is that he was never on a great team. His numbers more than warrant a plaque in Cooperstown. Trammell was one of the five best shortstops of the last half century in his peak years, and is simply overshadowed by Cal Ripken. And Dawson gets knocked for a .323 career OBP. Admittedly, that's not good, but everything else he did, he did very, very well. And just as I won't put Dave Kingman in the Hall for doing one thing well, I wouldn't keep the Hawk out for doing one thing poorly.