The fallout after Bountygate was about as bad as could be expected.
Everyone connected to the GAU football program found themselves with hard decisions to make on All American Season 5 Episode 7.
The good news was that Garrett’s college coaching career went down in flames thanks to Olivia’s, I mean Jayden’s, expose.
Unfortunately, the positives ended there, as every player on the team had to choose where they would play football next season.
Fearing the NCAA would levy the death penalty, the upper-level students turned in their jerseys. The recruits that Coach Kenny, Spencer, and Jordan had worked so hard to maintain bailed.
In the end, Kenny was left with a roster of about 40 players with whom to rebuild the program, including GAU’s stars, Spencer and Jordan. That was roughly a third of the squad’s prior number before Olivia’s bomb hit.
The Condors may have to rise from the ashes without Kenny. His discussions with A.D. Barnes left him feeling that he should be looking around for a new position, as he wasn’t likely to be held over on the staff of the new head coach.
Spencer felt a special connection to Coach Kenny. So he saw the first step to resurrecting the GAU program would be convincing Barnes to hire Kenny for continuity’s sake.
That was when things started falling apart in Spencer’s master plan. Kenny was Spencer’s position coach and an old teammate of Corey’s. But Jordan didn’t feel anywhere near the same attachment to him.
Spencer was delusional enough to believe that Barnes would do whatever was necessary to keep his star player happy. Instead, Barnes just danced around Spencer and told him to make an appointment. Poorly played, Spence.
Then there was the problem of Jordan, Spencer’s housemate and quarterback, deciding to explore his options, especially when his call started ringing with interest from other schools.
Spencer should have been clued in when Jordan started blowing him off that maybe Jordan wasn’t as invested in GAU as Spencer was.
Jordan can’t be faulted for listening. He had gone from a walk-in to the starting quarterback on a Div. 1 bowl team. It had to be flattering to find out other schools wanted him now.
And GAU will be Spencer’s team, especially now that the new coach will likely build the offense around him. The Wilmont offensive coordinator is promising to do the same for Jordan, so why wouldn’t he be interested?
Making things more awkward was that Spencer followed Grace’s solid suggestion and recruited Billy to join the campaign to make Coach Kenny the GAU head coach.
The sitdown with Barnes did get Kenny another interview with the A.D., only things didn’t work out as planned in the end, did they? So will Billy take the job? And how will that affect Jordan’s decision to leave?
It was great to see that Grace isn’t going to disappear from the show just because she and D’Angelo relocated to Oakland. Instead, she popped in to check how Spencer was doing with all the chaos now swirling around him, bringing her cuisine with her, to Asher and Coop’s delight.
A highlight of the episode was Grace’s gumbo dinner at the beach house, which brought together an intriguing cross-section of characters, with the adults dispensing wisdom to the young’uns.
Olivia spent most of her time in hiding, refusing to bask in the glow of her success. Now she contemplates the fallout from her story?
She did run her story with a pseudonym to protect Jordan and Spencer from individual fallout. But there was no safeguarding the program from future repercussions. So Olivia was wallowing in guilt as it became clear that Spencer and Jordan’s futures were now up in the air.
It wasn’t until she sat down with Jordan, then Spencer, as proposed by Laura, and each absolved her that she would allow herself to celebrate in the tiniest of ways.
There was also another chapter of “Patience Doesn’t Handle Fame Well.” The video teaser that she filmed was blowing up on social media. But rather than enjoying that, she got into a live argument with her trolls on social media.
This discord led to Layla and Clay getting into it yet again. Clay made a valid point that Patience’s authentic voice didn’t come through in the new image Gia had designed for her.
Then again, Layla discovered that the troll was a plant by Clay. It was easier to feel bad for Clay when Layla used him as her boy toy a summer ago.
But J.P. passed over Layla and put Clay in charge of his operation. Clay has won and should try being gracious instead now.
There was also the first chapter of “Coop Goes to Law School.”
This course began badly. As a rapper, Coop was accustomed to serving up opinion as fact. That approach isn’t going to cut it in law school.
As Coop scarfed gumbo, all those around her pointed out the error in her thinking and suggested how she could improve her approach.
This shift helped her to shine when she demanded another do-over from the professor. He’s not going to stand for that too many times.
To revisit past glories of South Crenshaw football, watch All American online.
With two-thirds of the squad fleeing, hasn’t GAU been punished enough?
Is Jordan taking the easy way out?
Should Billy accept the job?
Comment below.
Dale McGarrigle is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.