It was a year of 10,000 stories in and around college football in 2015. There were great plays made by great players, and there were plenty of magical and emotional moments to keep us entertained.

We’re culling the list down to the 50 best stories of the year. Here are stories 30 through 26:

RELATED: Stories 50-46 | Stories 45-41 | Stories 40-36 | Stories 35-31

30. The Les Miles circus at LSU

LSU and Alabama have had quite a few “Game of the Century” matchups in the Nick Saban vs. Les Miles era. This was supposed to be another this year when they squared off on Nov. 3 in Tuscaloosa.

The Tigers were 7-0 and ranked No. 2 in the country when the first College Football Playoff poll came out. Not everyone was convinced that LSU was very good, and the Tide proved that with a 30-16 thumping.

And then it got worse … and fast. Losses to Arkansas and Ole Miss followed and suddenly the Tigers were on a three-game losing streak and everyone wanted Miles run out of town. He had descended from the penthouse to the outhouse in three quick weeks.

All week leading up to the Texas A&M season finale, there was one report after another that Miles was going to be fired. After the fact, LSU athletic director Joe Alleva admitted that he made inquiries about other coaches.

Even after beating Texas A&M 19-7, Miles thought it was going to happen. He enjoyed the last win like it truly was his last win at LSU. He even took a farewell tour around the stadium, and did a horribly bad rendition of the LSU fight song.

But right after the game,  Alleva said Miles was staying. Just like that. Maybe the $15-million-or-more buyout was too much. Maybe the right politician said no somewhere along the line. Either way, Miles was back.

No one looked good in this whole soap opera, especially Alleva. Fans are just as enraged at him for all that’s gone on in the past year.

What’s amazing about Miles is that he’s all about surviving when the chaos swirls around him. He’ll call a trick play to win a game at a time where no one in their right mind would do it.

Even now, after nearly getting fired, there’s been plenty of reports that Miles and his agent have been asking for a raise. It’s so bizarre in Baton Rouge. Eleven years in to the Les Miles era, and we’re still all on the edge of our seats.

Miles admits the 2015 team underachieved. That doesn’t mean he’ll stop working. He wants what everyone wants at LSU. And you could see that in his final postgame press conference. He works were measured, soft, personal.

29. Security officer knows how to wrap up

Sure it was a big deal when Tennessee finally got over the hump and won an important that mattered when they upset Georgia earlier this year.

Storming the field is what kids do these days after a big win, even though they aren’t supposed to in the SEC.

This kid learned the hard. Watch this great tackle by a security guard in Knoxville:

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only security guard who made headlines. Some of the others were more violent:

According to MSnewsnow.com, a man named Chris Barnes is featured in this video posted to Facebook. Shown in what appears to be an animated conversation with two security officers, Barnes eventually takes a hard right hand to the face, causing a stir among the fans seated nearby.

IMG_1308My husband, a two time Veteran of the US Army National Guard, was wrongfully assaulted on campus during the Ole Miss vs LSU game by a POLICE OFFICER. He was hit twice in the face and then arrested. THEY DID NOT GIVE HIM MEDICAL ATTENTION. Four hours later once he posted bail, he asked his friends to take him to the ER. He was diagnosed with a concussion, fractures to his orbital wall and maxillary sinus and contusions to the tissues of his eyes. This all stemmed because the officers thought he did something that someone a few rows up did and blamed him and his friends. I’m disappointed in the University police department and the Oxford police department for letting this happen. YOU ARE NOT ABOVE THE LAW. THIS IS NOT OK. Please help us get justice by calling out this police officer! I want his NAME AND BADGE! Please help me get this to the media by sharing. Thank you. Pictures posted in comments.

Posted by Holly Barnes on Sunday, November 22, 2015

According to the news report, the punch left Barnes’ face looking like this:

Screen Shot 2015-11-22 at 5.05.17 PM

28. Dak Prescott’s place in the record books

The impact Dak Prescott has had at Mississippi State is hardly measurable beyond the numbers. What he’s done is simply make Hail State football relevant again.

That will be his lasting legacy, not the numbers.

“One of the things I’m most proud of is how we’ve changed the expectation of winning,” Prescott wrote in a first-person piece for SI’s Campus Rush site. “When I first got here, we went 7–6 and played in the Music City Bowl. Our fans were there, it was sold out. Now, if we went to the Music City Bowl, our fans wouldn’t be that excited about it. It would be a down year or whatever you want to call it. Really, there’s just an expectation of winning that exists that didn’t before. Going into the Alabama game two weeks ago, all of our fans thought we’d win. When I first got to campus, our fans wouldn’t have been nearly as confident about us winning that game, even though we ultimately lost.”

Of course, the numbers are pretty impressive. Here’s what Prescott has done while 38 school records in Starkville.

  • One of four players in FBS history and the second player in SEC history (2007 Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow) to throw for 60 touchdowns and rush for 40 touchdowns in a career.
  • One of 10 players in FBS history and the second player in SEC history (Tebow) to pass for 8,500 yards and rush for 2,000 yards.
  • Has accounted for 110 career touchdowns, which ranks fourth in SEC history.
  • Has tallied 11,470 yards of total offense, which ranks third in SEC history.
  • One of three FBS quarterbacks the last two decades to rush for 10 touchdowns and throw for 10 touchdowns in three straight seasons (Tebow and Colin Kaepernick).
  • One of two players in SEC history (Tebow) with 25 passing touchdowns and 10 rushing touchdowns in multiple seasons.
  • Owns the best winning percentage as a starting quarterback in school history (.688).
  • The SEC’s active career leader in total offense, touchdowns responsible for, pass completions, passing yards, touchdown passes, rushing touchdowns, and rushing yards by a quarterback.
  • Two-time All-American and two-time All-SEC quarterback.
  • Second quarterback in school history to earn consecutive All-SEC first-team honors (Billy Stacy, 1956-57).

He’s been a pleasure to watch these past three years and he’s certainly going to be missed in Starkville. And if his track record means anything, look for him to light up the scoreboard in another bowl game this year.

27. For once, Vanderbilt was the dumb one

It was just a simple tweet to fire up the fan base as another football season approached. Too bad there wasn’t an editor around, or a second pair of eyes.

Because as innocent as it was meant to be, someone in the Vanderbilt public relations office missed the big picture back in August … and the Twitter trolls went nuts afterward.

The PR tweet simply said We are RELENTLESS, TOUGH AND INTELLIGENT, and … – which seemed totally fine – but included in the tweet was a picture with the quote “We Don’t Need Your Permission” that was attributed to coach Derek Mason.

That’s all good and well, except for the fact that the school – and much of Nashville, really – is still reeling from nasty rape charges and subsequent legal battles against several Vandy football players.

“We Don’t Need Your Permission” is the last thing that should have come out of the PR office.

Apologies came in a hurry, from the top down, and everyone felt bad about it. But in the split-second Twitter world that we live in, the mistake traveled fast. The one school in the conference that can count on being smart turned out to be really dumb on this one.

And because we can rarely pick on the geniuses at Vandy for doing dumb stuff, we had a little fun at their expense, as well. There’s a bunch of “If Vandy Ran Twitter” memes we created. They’re all here on this link, but here’s the best three.

arkansas

alabama1

LSU

26. Coordinator migrations

Sure, some of us can boast about seeing the Les Miles disaster coming (see No. 30 above) but someone who prepared for the possibility of a Miles firing a year ago was former LSU defensive coordinator John Chavis.

When Chavis was negotiating a new contract extension, LSU administrators included language in the deal that said if the school fired Miles, they could void the remaining years on Chavis’ deal and not have to pay him.

That was unacceptable to Chavis, so he bolted for Texas A&M and the lawsuits immediately followed. LSU claims Chavis owes them $400,000 for the buyout of his previous contract. Chavis has sued for back pay and time owed. Cases in two states have dragged on for a year now, and they won’t end any time soon.  The latest has LSU admitted they altered the contract after it was signed.

Chavis could have really put the nail in Miles’ coffin if A&M could have beaten LSU in the final game of the season. It didn’t happen and Miles survived. Chavis says he’s got nothing against Miles, but it’s going to be an uncomfortable final game of the regular season for years to come.

Will Muschamp is another guy who has other SEC schools angry with him. The new head coach at South Carolina draws the ire of the Florida people for running their program into the ground for four years.

Now it’s the Auburn folks who are mad after Muschamp bolted after just one year as defensive coordinator. They weren’t real happy with his defense anyway this year, so many of them don’t mind saying goodbye.

In all, 12 of the 14 SEC teams hired at least one coordinator between the ’14 and ’15 seasons.