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.

RELATED: Stories 50-46 | Stories 45-41 | Stories 40-36 | Stories 35-31 | Stories 30-26 | Stories 25-21 | Stories 20-16

We’re culling the list down to the 50 best stories of the year. Here are stories 15 through 11:

15. Ole Miss beats Alabama back-to-back

We all scoffed when Ole Miss hung 70-plus the first two weeks of the season, dismissing it as running up the score on two inferior opponents (UT-Martin, Fresno State). Alabama will get their licks in, we figured.

And rightly so. After all, the Crimson Tide was the best team in America, many of us thought, and that defense was incredible. There’s no way this new kid Chad Kelly would move the ball on Bama, especially since they were so fired up to dole out paybacks after that bitter 2014 defeat to the Rebels.

And then this happens: Ole Miss wins again, 43-37. In Tuscaloosa.

It was a shock to many. But in the Ole Miss locker room, it was a shock to no one. Only the second win ever in Tuscaloosa? Sure, no problem.

“I don’t think it surprises the people in our locker room. Our pregame was as short as it’s ever been. I said, ‘You’re good enough to win.’ ” Ole Miss coach Huge Freeze said. “We certainly think we’re at a point now where it’s not a shock. I still say it would be an upset in most people’s eyes to do it here.”

Of course it was an upset because it would be the only game Alabama would lose all year. They are that good. But on this one September night in Alabama, Ole Miss was better.

Again.

QB Chad Kelly had a quiet first half, but then he went nuts, throwing for an amazing 305 yards in the second half alone.

Kelly’s craziest completion was a 66-yard deflection caught by Quincy Adeboyejo for a touchdown, a desperate heave after a bad snap.

Kelly said he figured the 6-foot-3 Adeboyejo could “jump the highest out of anybody, and I just gave him a chance. Right after that you think, ‘Hey, we’re winning this,'” he said. “And that’s exactly how we all thought, that this was our game.”

Kelly added a 73-yarder to Cody Core and a another TD pass to Laquon Treadwell.

In the big picture, it didn’t work out for Ole Miss as it would have hoped. The Rebels have never been to the SEC Championship Game and has never won the SEC West. After a second-straight beatdown of Bama, this was to finally be their season. But they lost to Florida badly and then lost a crazy shootout with Arkansas and Bama passed them by.

Still they’ll always have their night in Tuscaloosa.

14. Rece Davis joins the College GameDay set

College GameDay on ESPN has become a staple of our football Saturdays. Since 1987, the show has grown and grown each year, so much so that sometimes it’s even more fun than the games.

What GameDay was, though, was a show where the faces never changed. It was Chris Fowler running things for 25 years, with Lee Corso from the beginning and Kirk Herbstreit there for 20 years himself.

But this year, it took on a new look. Rece Davis took over for Fowler, who wanted to focus more on calling games, including the best primetime game for ESPN/ABC on Saturday nights.

It was a smooth transition. Davis, a 21-year ESPN vet who had deftly anchored a similar college basketball pregame show for year, simply killed it. He was sensational.

“The show and the people on the show have established so much credibility that what their opinions are about the issues of the day matter,” Davis recently told AL.com earlier this year. “Chris [Fowler] did such an extraordinary job hosting the show for 25 years and overseeing it’s growth, that it is gratifying to take over for him and you’re pleased and proud to be a part of it.”

There were a few conspiracy theorists who wondered how all these moving pieces played out, but in the end Davis and Fowler were thrilled with the transition. They’re still on the same team, and no one does college football better than ESPN. It’s not even close.

“I am delighted that Chris and I are on the same team in some capacity because I have tremendous respect for his ability. We want the best people to work for us on our sport. I’m delighted he’s happy. I know I am happy. Hopefully everyone else is too.”

13. Gary Pinkel resigns at Missouri

Gary Pinkel came to Missouri prior to the 2001 season and had a great 15-year run. He announced his retirement in November during a tumultuous time on the Mizzou campus, letting everyone know he was dealing with non-Hodgkins lymphoma and needed to focus on his health and his family.

Pinkel won 191 games as a head coach, 73 at Toledo in 10 years and 118 at Mizzou in his 15 years there. He claimed a share of three Big 12 titles and nearly won a national championship in 2007. He won the SEC East twice, in 2013 and 2014.

That might very well be the best testament to Pinkel’s coaching ability. When Missouri joined the SEC, no one thought they would be able to compete at a high level. No one. To win back-to-back East titles was shocking, and a great showing by Pinkel and his crew.

This final season was a disappointment, finishing 5-7 and losing 28-3 to Arkansas in his final game.

Pinkel was happy to see Barry Odom, his former defensive coordinator, get the job.

12. SEC West lays an egg in bowl season

When you’re a Southerner, you know without hesitation that the SEC is the best college football league in the country and it’s not even close. And these past few years, the huge majority of the power has sat in the SEC West. Alabama, Auburn and LSU have all won national titles in the past decade and there’s always plenty of chest-thumping.

That’s why it was so shocking that the SEC West won only two bowl games in seven tries last year.

What made it even worse was that the SEC West teams were heavily favored in five of the seven games. And by heavy, we mean more than a touchdown heavy. There was some serious crashing and burning. Witness:

The favorites:

  • LSU (–.7.5) over Notre Dame: Notre Dame won 31-28, and this wasn’t even that good of a Notre Dame team.
  • Mississippi State (–7) over Georgia Tech: Georgia Tech won 49-35 in the Orange Bowl, and they were only in the game because ACC champ Florida State had made the playoffs.
  • Auburn (–6.5) over Wisconsin: Wisconsin won 34-31, which sticks in the craw of every SEC fan every time a Big Ten team win a showdown with the SEC.
  • Alabama (–9) over Ohio State:  Ohio State won 42-35 in the college football playoff. This one hurt the most, of course, because the stakes were so high. Alabama embarrassed the SEC on a national stage, and it was made even worse because it was a Big Ten team coached by Urban Meyer. When OSU won a national title a week later, it hurt even worse.
  • Arkansas (–5) over Texas: Arkansas won 31-7, the only SEC favorite to win. We won’t go there that Texas was downright awful (And still are awful).

Some Alabama fans didn’t take the loss well.

The underdogs:

  • Texas A&M (+3.5) over West Virginia: A&M won 45-37 as a slight dog, but this game was on and off the board a bunch during the holiday season. Still, it was the only other win. Kyle Allen threw for four touchdowns and ran for another. He’s going to be a great QB for A&M for years to come. (Oops. How’d that turn out?)
  • Ole Miss (+3) vs. TCU: This was the biggest embarrassment of them all. TCU won 42-3 when Ole Miss laid a complete egg in the Sugar Bowl. Not showing up is a compliment. Not being prepared is one thing, but not caring is the cardinal sin. Ole Miss looked like they didn’t care. And what’s most amazing was that as a three-point underdog, the Rebels were one of those dogs that the bettors loved. Imagine that.

SEC pride certainly took a major hit. And that’s the bad thing about having a bad bowl season. You have to wait an entire year to do something about it. And, everyone makes fun of you. A lot.

Fast fact: Six of the seven SEC West teams are favored in their bowl games this season. Let’s see how that goes.

11. The tragic South Carolina floods

The rain started coming and it wouldn’t stop. Minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, it just continued to pour in Columbia and throughout South Carolina.

It was terrible. It was called a thousand-year storm. At least 17 people died, more than a dozen dams broke and half a million people went without water and power for days.

While Columbia attempted to dry out, the last thing on anyone’s mind was the playing of a football game. Carolina was scheduled to play LSU on Oct. 10 in Columbia, but there was no way the city was ready to host 90,000 fans.

And there was no better fan base better prepared to reach out a hand and say “Let us help.”

Louisiana people have survived Hurricane Katrina and they know what it’s like to have your life changed forever after being dealt a serious blow from Mother Nature. LSU administrators immediately offered to host the game in Baton Rouge and USC gladly accepted.

And the LSU folks made them feel right at home. Even in the bayou, this was a South Carolina home game.

LSU won the game 45-24 but it was irrelevant compared to all the heartwarming hospitality that was shown

The LSU band played South Carolina’s alma mater before and after the game. And Tigers fans, who are usually pretty rough on opposing teams, applauded the Gamecocks as they took and left the field.

“Everyone in this area kind of understands what we’re going through,” South Carolina QB Perry Orth said, referring to Katrina’s effects on the area. “It was nice to see the fans cheering us on.”

South Carolina athletic director Ray Tanner said the hospitality offered by LSU and its fans was “truly moving.”

LSU running back Leonard Fournette even auctioned off his game jersey to raise money for the struggling citizens in South Carolina. Fournette, a New Orleans native, survived Katrina as a kid.

Because there was only three days to sell tickets, only 42,000 fans showed up at the 100,000-seat Tiger Stadium. It was a surreal day.

But it was also the perfect definition of Southern hospitality.