The 2012 college-football season has arrived at last. Starting Thursday, 124 teams from Massachusetts to Hawaii will battle for glory on the field, while trying to minimize the damage they cause off of it.

To rate their prospects for success in both respects, The Wall Street Journal presents its second-annual Grid of Shame.

The Grid is a subjective rating of every major-college team on two levels: how good the team should be this season, and how much shame it has brought its supporters. The shame scale takes into account a variety of factors, from NCAA rules-related scandals and player misbehavior to academic performance and financial state.

Controversy is a constant today in college football, and being a fan requires being able to overlook the sport's many ills.

Not everything that has happened over the past year was bad, depending on your point of view. College football's power brokers finally agreed on a four-team playoff which will begin after the 2014 season, quieting the mob that had formed against the reviled Bowl Championship Series. Texas Christian and West Virginia are happy. Those schools ditched the less-respected Mountain West and Big East conferences, respectively, and joined the Big 12. Missouri and Texas A&M did even better, leaving the Big 12 for the Southeastern Conference, winner of the past six national championships.