Deadspin
Dan Shanoff writes a weekly college football column for Deadspin. Email him to let him know what you think.
Sunday morning, 2 a.m.: I am writing this now because I cannot sleep, because my team's season is ruined. Obliterated.
I could be an Oklahoma fan. Or a West Virginia fan. Or a Texas fan. Or even a Rutgers fan. As it happens, I am a Florida fan. What we share is the fate that in Week 5, our team's seasons are effectively over.
Oh, sure, conference titles might still be up for grabs. But this season was about competing for a national championship. A spot in a BCS bowl simply isn't the same.
As every week seems to need some sort of forced made-for-TV alliterative hook, this past was "Shat-Away Saturday." Survey the carnage among the national-title contenders:
Oklahoma: Optimistic Sooners fans weren't just looking ahead to the Texas game. They were looking ahead to the BCS title game. Season shat away.
Florida: Guuuuhhhhh! I heard Tim Tebow's post-game tears triggered 24-hour coverage on the Weather Channel. Season shat away.
West Virginia: Wait, didn't we see this result last year in Morgantown? So why would it be different in Tampa? Season shat away.
Texas: I hate the word "pwned," but it probably fits the relationship between UT fans and Kansas State fans. Season shat away.
Rutgers: After tasting the good life a year ago, the irony is that this team was even better: Fans actually BELIEVED this time. Suckers. Season shat away.
This last entry is a critical one: Rooting for a perennial national contender is exciting in theory, but the expectations are crippling.
One bad loss: The season is a bust. You can slap labels on it like "seasoning" or "rebuilding" or "fluke," but that's all rationalizing.
When I was at Northwestern in the early 90s, we regularly noted there is something to be said for rooting for a sorry team like NU, where mere "bowl eligibility" — looking at the schedule and talking yourself into seeing six wins — is the annual dream.
So, for fans of a team like Illinois, an unexpected win over a ranked team like Penn State is, in its temporary way, as sweet as winning a championship. (Ed. Note: This is true.)
Oklahoma or West Virginia fans could end up with a BCS at-large bowl bid and they would STILL be bitter; Illini fans will flock to the Motor City Bowl and celebrate like they're in the national championship. (Ed. Note: Or the Champs Sports Bowl!)
For fans of national contenders — in this or any season — there is no such thing as an unexpected win... just unexpected losses.
Soul-crushing, mind-imploding, sleep-depriving losses. How effing disturbing is it to ponder dissatisfaction with an 11-win season? (Cripes: I almost typed "10-win season," until I realized those 2 losses would make the season damn near unredeemable. Seriously: This is so wrong. But then I wonder: If my season is all but ruined with 1 or 2 losses, how does a Notre Dame fan feel at 0-5? Unfathomable.)
Personally, I am reduced to wondering if my new Tebow jersey should be mothballed permanently for its bad juju... to watching 10-month-old DVR recordings of last year's national title game... to peeking ahead to next year's schedule (and this year's depth chart) and to plotting explanations why next year's team WILL be the national champ (and rationalizing why Saturday's loss, um, helps)... and to bracing myself for an ass-kicking next week in Baton Rouge.
Yeesh: It's only Week 5? It's a long road 'til next season's national title. But at least now the expectations can start earlier.
Wait: But... but... Florida lost last year to Auburn, then recovered to win the national title! Can we talk about this...? What about the fact that Florida is the highest-ranked of the 1-loss teams? Nooooooo... help meeee....
This Week's Bandwagon: South Florida
College football is built on tradition. Decades upon decades of tradition, allowing long-baked rivalries and attitudes to flourish.
So how do you feel about South Florida? Here's a program that didn't even EXIST 15 years ago. How can you hate them? Then again, how can you love them? How can you feel anything about them?
On the other hand, in the hierarchy of college football jobs, managing a powerhouse like Texas or USC seems relatively easy (aside from expectations). Turning around a long-standing dud, like Rutgers, is much harder. But hardest of all would be to create a program from scratch, then turn it into a national powerhouse — in one decade.
(No wait, I take it back: Hardest of all would be being given the keys to the most prominent brand name in college sports history and managing to run it into the ground in just three seasons. Rah, Charlie Weis!)
More than anything, it speaks to the motherlode of talent to be found recruiting in Florida. Jim Leavitt took Florida, FSU and Miami's sloppy fourths and turned those recruits into a Top 10 team.
USF has a tough schedule left: Believe it or not, at Rutgers, at UConn and home against Cincy suddenly reads like a daunting gauntlet.
But if the Bulls can survive it unscathed, combined with a signature non-conference win over the team that just beat Florida in Gainesville, it's not crazy to consider South Florida a BCS title-game contender.
My BlogPoll Ballot Top 10
1. LSU
AP finally catches up with the bloggers.
2. South Florida
Officially the best team in the state.
3. Cal
But are they ready to dethrone USC?
4. Ohio State
Played at UW tougher than USC.
5. USC
Just lucky Jake Locker is a spaz.
6. Boston College
Defied my prediction of a 1-AA upset.
7. Wisconsin
What happened to the stout D?
8. Kentucky
This can't possibly last, can it?
9. Cincinnati
Cincy is my new Rutgers, apparently.
10. Florida/Oklahoma (tie)
Both played like ass.
Here's Here's my complete BlogPoll ballot this week.
Rankings Ranting: Cripes, anyone else think they had a handle on the field before Saturday? I was pretty curious to see how the pollsters would handle it.
As it happens, the most important detail is this: Where (and how) do the pollsters rank last week's six previously unbeaten Top 10 teams, which would indicate which one-loss team has the inside track in the event of losses to the teams ahead of them?
Advantage: Florida. The Gators are 7th in the Coaches poll (9th AP), then Oklahoma (10/10), then WVU (12/13), then Oregon (13/14), then Texas (16/19), then Rutgers (21). (Of course, after Florida gets shellacked at LSU, this will be moot.)
Seriously: What happens now? Suddenly, LSU-Florida is no longer the Game of the Year. Oklahoma-Texas is the Dud River Rivalry. USC-Cal is shaping up as a de facto national semifinal. Oh, and South Florida is America's Team.
I suppose fans of the one-loss erstwhile contenders could look to last year's Florida team for hope: Those Gators lost early to Auburn, yet ended up winning the national title. But that team needed all sorts of cockeyed help, like USC losing to UCLA and Lloyd Carr's rhetorical and political ineptitude. You just can't count on that this year.
But with only 15 unbeaten teams remaining (LSU, USC, Cal, OH St, Wisco, USF, BC, Kent'y, Hawaii, Mizzou, AZ St, Cincy, Purdue, UConn, Kansas) and only five weeks of the season gone by, there's always the chance — maybe even the inevitability, given those teams' remaining schedules — that NO teams will finish unbeaten.
Looking Ahead to Next Week's Schedule:
It cannot possibly get any more crazy than this past weekend, can it? Except if LSU, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Mizzou and Cincy all lose, then Oklahoma and Texas agree that the winner gets to strike last week's loss from their official record. All could happen!
Florida at LSU: Perhaps Saturday's biggest loser was the Tigers, whose thumping of Florida won't be nearly as impressive now as it would have been had the Gators been unbeaten and ranked No. 2 or 3.
Pick: LSU.
Oklahoma vs. Texas (in Dallas): The question is, which team is more pissed their season's hopes and dreams were shot to hell the previous week? And how to do they focus that rage?
Pick: Oklahoma.
Kentucky at South Carolina: Suddenly, the SEC East looks available for the taking by new national MVP favorite Andre' Woodson. (First-name apostrophes are the new Heisman pose.)
Pick: Kentucky.
Ohio State at Purdue: The Buckeyes side-stepped last weekend's epidemic of upsets, but the Boilermakers' offense — and home-field advantage — might be enough to trip them up this time.
Pick: Purdue.
Cincinnati at Rutgers: If this year's South Florida is last year's Rutgers and this year's Cincinnati is last year's USF, then this year's Rutgers is last year's West Virginia: The team up-and-coming programs want to knock off to prove their legitimacy.
Pick: Cincinnati.
As usual, send any comments or questions to danshanoff-[at]-gmail-[dot]-com.
Comments
Sorry Dan, we've already given out all out sympathy we have for quite a while.
You can be a Syracuse football fan, where your season's ruined when the schedule comes out. Or a fan of teams that haven't won a pro sports championship in the last decade.
And holy HTML!
If this year's South Florida is last year's Rutgers and this year's Cincinnati is last year's USF, then this year's Rutgers is last year's West Virginia.
When will then be now?
Holy hyperlink, Batman!
Camp Tiger Claw is The Xavier Lee.
Today was the first time I've ever looked forward to reading this column.
I am writing this now because I cannot sleep, because my team's season is ruined. Obliterated.
Aw hell Shanoff, just jump bandwagons. You should be good at that by now.
This post is only built 4 Cuban linx.
@Rob Iracane:
Soon.
Ugh. I spent all day yesterday walking around like George Michael Bluth with the Charlie Brown music playing in the background.
Boo hoo. Try rooting for NC State. I really shed tears for all the Haves of college football today and every day. I feel their shattered disappointments so keenly.
You know, I hate to say it, but Illinois actually looked like a real team on Saturday. Defense and everything. Huh.
ClownForPound forsooth it!
I can't help but think that all of those games mentioned at the end are somehow linked together.
I don't know how you can drop the Ducks 9 spots for pulling an Earnest Byner at the goaling against an undefeated, top 10 Cal squad.
As Nelson Muntz would eloquently say:
Ha Ha!
If BC loses this week I blame Suss
Another thing. SEC fans like to bitch and bray about how their league is the toughest league because nobody else has to play a conference schedule full of badasses like the SEC. Well, this is part of that bargain, mah friend. Besides aren't the SEC's last three national champs all 1-loss teams? Sorry you can't have your cake and be undefeated too.
But again, my deepest sympathies. Every day I get up and say a prayer for Michigan, Oklahoma, Mack Brown, Texas, the Swamp, Mike the Tiger, the Hedges and Ohio State, because they are what make college football great, not my own team, my own school, and its accomplishments, admittedly small. I should know my betters.
Nothing lasts forever, and just like the Papelboners experienced in Boston, the Tebowners in Florida have now lost potency after just five weeks.
Uh, here.
Or the Champs Sports Bowl.
Orlando Centroplex here we come!!!
@buttons: +1
The Terps 9th string QB sure looked good in the second half...
@swayzegoescrazy: Well anything longer than four hours and you're supposed to call your doctor.
You should trade your Tebow jersey for a Grothe jersey. Especially if you like QB's who throw off their back foot into triple coverage. Leak used to do that but I'm not sure if you'd remember that because that was pre-Urban.
Intense college sports fandom hurts my brain. 30 year olds living and dying by the actions of random 19 year olds? Ugh.
@swayzegoescrazy: I wouldn't be so sure that the Papelboners have yet subsided.
Dan, I know you haven't been a "die-hard" Florida fan very long, but didn't "your" team lose to Auburn last year too? That seemed to turn out OK...
Poor guy lost his Tebowner. This should come with the slide whistle sound effect. Bwoooooooooop....
You're overreacting, Gator fans. Not only are you the top-ranked one-loss team, but you still have to play LSU, Kentucky, Georgia, S. Carolina and FSU. If you win out, which you had to do, anyway, there's a very good chance you'll be in the BCS' top 2, just with that SOS and the fact that some teams ahead will be knocked off.
USC plays Cal; OSU plays Wisc.; BC is just OK; and, oh yeah, you play two of the teams ahead of you in the AP poll
@Doxidan, Gentle Doxidan: Thank you for taking Tom O'Brien. I can't stress this enough.
Football. I wish I could quit you.
if shanoff had followed my gameday loss plan he wouldn't have been up at 2am saturday night (mornings begin when the sun comes up damn it!) wallowing in misery.
that plan involves drinking yourself into a state of obnoxious, blind rage where you threaten strangers who cheer for the wrong team and feel the need to throw and/or punch things for no reason. when you awake the next morning the hangover is so severe you don't even think about the gameday loss. that's fighting fire with fire.
@Hustler of Culture: I heard that the backup QB for Maryland that won that game is the son of the drummer for RATT.
Any Terps fans know if this is true? Because if so, it's awesome.
Shat away?
I prefer sharted.
this is why i don't follow college football
thank god i didn't go to a school with a major sports program, i could end up like you saps
Allow me to read from the book of Revelations, Chapter 15:
1 I saw a pale white horse grazing in the Keeneland infield.
2 Inside, I noticed a tall person in black robes
3 and he wagered heavily on early Aqueduct action,
4 He mumbling about "riding out" if Kentucky can secure a win against South Carolina.
5 And lo, the skies opened up above me, and fire and houndstooth fell
Blessed be the Andre, the Keenan and the Rafeal AMEN.
@StuScott Booyahs: As opposed to cheering for the Redskins? Eh, I think I'll be fine.
The head ball coach puts 50 up on overraited Kentucky. You boys do your part and lose to LSU, so the 'cocks can win the SEC East.
By the way, there's only 12 days until Midnight Madness!
We UK Fans still remember, believe it or not.
I could be an Oklahoma fan. Or a West Virginia fan. Or a Texas fan. Or even a Rutgers fan. As it happens, I am a Florida fan.
Crybaby. Try being a Penn State fan. Try going from 10th, 10TH!, in the nation to Big Ten doormats in the span of two weekends. Try watching, oops, listening --F-you BTN-- to Anthony Fredo Morelli quarterback your team into one turnover after another. Shit, they still have Wisconsin and tOSU. Sorry, couldn't rant over the weekend.
i'm actually not seeing any major teams going undefeated this year, except maybe USC. Everyone else is going to lose. Yep, probably LSU too.
For fans of national contenders
You mean really really really really rich white kids who can/did afford to go to one of about six or seven schools?
Because I don't know any of those people.
i think this is why i like college football so much more than the nfl (aside from the fact that a college gameday is actually a fri afternoon - sun morning drinking event surrounded by hot or hot-enough 18-22 yr old girls).
the falcons beating the steelers was the equivalent of the colorado/oklahoma upset, but does that mean the steelers won't go to the super bowl now? no. does it make it harder for the steelers to win their division? no. it's just an upset in a season where every team simply seeks to make the playoffs. the pressure on every individual regular season game is something unique just to college football. every loss hurts, because every loss greatly affects the season.
@Spectacular Sam: and the Orioles
yeah, i suppose you got me there
@StuScott Booyahs: I hear ya.. The worst offenders are the people who attend(ed) SUNY Siberia or Dickweed Community College but have a shrine devoted to ND/Michigan/OSU/UF/UGA/Alabama/USC Etc. They paint their house that school's colors, have a conniption over every fumble and name their kid after the stadium, but probably couldn't find "their" school on a map. Unhealthy and bizarre.
Just pick a new team. What's it going to cost you, $65 for a jersey and $20 for a hat?