COLUMN: No sense in making sense of wacky world of football upsets
Making sense of a game that makes no sense
In the world of college football, nobody is safe.
For the third straight week, a team ranked No. 1 fell from the ranks of the unbeaten. This time it was Oklahoma – a team Utah State nearly upset in week one. The team the Sooners lost to – Missouri – is undefeated after eight weeks, but a month ago the Tigers were on the ropes against San Diego State, needing only a last minute, disputed touchdown to pull out the win. The Aztecs, in turn, blew out the Aggies the following week. Utah State responded by subsequently blowing out a Brigham Young team we all thought was amongst the worst in the country. That was, until the Cougars came back and upset San Diego State the week after.
Scratching your head yet?
Don’t, because the madness doesn’t end there. For 43 straight years Notre Dame beat Navy, until four years ago, when the Midshipmen finally upset the Irish in a triple-overtime thriller. Since 2007, Navy has taken three out of four from the once-powerful Irish, including last Saturday’s 35-17 smackdown.
The Irish aren’t the only traditional power suffering from an identity crisis. Texas, which lost to UCLA at home three weeks ago, has gone nine straight years with 10 or more wins in a season, the second longest mark in history. It’s a mark that Mack Brown and his Longhorns looked secure in continuing when they upset Nebraska on the road two weeks ago – that was until those same Longhorns laid an egg this past week against traditional Big 12 afterthought Iowa State, losing 28-21. UCLA, meanwhile, lost one of the most lopsided games of the season last Thursday when Oregon destroyed the Bruins 60-13.
Last year’s National Champion (Alabama) has already fallen. The team that was supposed to have the easiest road to the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) title game, Ohio State, likewise lost. Seven unbeaten teams remain, but with so much turnover at the top of the rankings, how much longer can we expect Oregon, Auburn or Missouri to stay undefeated?
The answer? Not long.
Face it – parity is the new face of college football, and it’s here to stay. And, as the pressure is turned up for teams, the stakes are often too high for the players on the field to mentally prepare themselves for. It doesn’t matter what a team looks like “on paper,” because college football is the one sport in America where the “on paper” argument holds less and less weight every day. These are, after all, college kids. They live complicated lives. They have, in some cases, selfish interests. And, as Texas head coach Mack Brown recently alluded to, they are sometimes far from focused when it comes to actually showing up and, you know, playing the game.
“I do think there’s some entitlement with this team,” Brown said when tying to explain his team’s up and down performances over the past three weeks. “They sit around thinking it’s just going to happen … It’s all about confidence and passion … I can handle a loss if we are playing with passion. I can’t if we’re not. “
Understanding competitive parity in college football is no simple equation. But even when one factors in variables like increased participation at the prep level, the theoretical mechanisms which have been offered to explain the upsets in recent years still fail to paint a complete picture of the phenomenon. The only valid explanation remaining is that players – and coaches – just fail to show up and perform to their best of their abilities. How else does Utah State play so well against BYU one week and so poorly against Louisiana Tech the next?
When you think about it, the whole concept stands to reason. Just because you can do something well doesn’t mean you’ll do it well every time. Heck, I can usually write a pretty good college football story, but given the stress of midterms and the endless amount of dates I have scheduled (girls, seriously, stop calling), even I will produce work that doesn’t reflect my true ability.
The problem is that today, it’s not so simple. What Brown was getting at is something fixed to time and place. Today’s young athletes are taking less and less time to prepare and devote themselves to discipline and attention to detail. In some cases they flaunt that “entitled” attitude, and fail to take challenges seriously. It’s showing up on the field in more and more teams – from the future NFL stars at top-ranked programs who think they can beat anyone to the perennial bottom feeders who are just looking to get out of a rainy stadium and chill with their friends after the game. Unsurprisingly, the teams with the most discipline and focus – teams like Navy and Boise State – are the teams benefiting from others’ downfalls.
We’ve seen this story before. 2007 is, with good reason, often seen as a landmark year when assessing parody in the game. Not only was it the year Michigan lost to Appalachian State and West Virginia was denied a spot in the national title by the a mediocre Pittsburgh team, but it set the stage for the next three years with regards to top-ranked teams in the BCS and upsets. Since 2007, No. 1 ranked teams in the BCS poll have gone just 15-9 – hardly safe odds for those in the national title discussion. In the past it’s opened the door for one- or even two-loss teams to make their way into the top five of the BCS, but this year might be different with Boise State and Texas Christian knocking on the door.
The end result? Armageddon for all those who’ve long claimed that the “small schools” don’t belong in the National Title Game, and the revolution opponents of the BCS system have long hoped for.
Adam Nettina is a senior majoring in history and a member of the Football Writer’s Association of America. He can also be reached at adam.nettina@aggiemail.usu.edu.