NCAA Football: Losers Usually Lose

(Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

If you have been a consistent college football junkie for the past decade or so, you may be aware of some yearly trends.  You may even be able to flip on a game and predict the outcome from time to time. 

This past Saturday was a perfect example.  Teams who usually lose big games found ways to lose big games.  It seems as if these certain teams have perfected losing.

Let's take a look back at what happened:

1) LSU at Georgia.  The oddsmakers in Vegas actually touted the Bulldogs the favorite for some ridiculous, unfounded, unresearched, history-ignoring reason.  I mean really, when has Georgia ever lived up to any sort of hype or ranking (at least since Herschel Walker finished his bruising career)?  When UGA found a way to answer LSU's 4th quarter touchdown with one of their own, taking the lead 13-12 (of course they didn't get the 2-pt conversion) with about a minute left, did anybody seriously think Richt's squad would actually win this game??  I sure didn't.  And sure enough, LSU's slooowwww running back busted a big run to win the game.  Yeah, biiiigggg surprise.   

2) USC at Cal.  Anybody out there think Cal had a prayer in this game?  "They're playing at home...USC is missing one of their running backs...USC isn't that good...bla bla bla."  Cal, in a word, is, well, NOTGOOD.  Any time anybody ranks this team high or picks the Bears to win the Pac-10, you can guaran-damn-tee this team will choke gigantically.  And, surprise surprise, USC took the Bears out back and bashed 'em up.  What a shocker.  Getting worked by five touchdowns in Eugene the week before didn't help the myth either.  Did Cal even score against USC?  It was 20-0 late in the game and I decided I'd rather try to shave my own back with a fork than waste any more time watching the Golden Bears try to muster a late field goal. 

3) Wisconsin at Minnesota.  Oh those crazy Golden Gophers, will they ever be a threat?  The answer is, of course, "no, jackass, no."  I'll be honest, I didn't watch much of this game.  And do you know why?  Because the outcome was decided before it even started.  It would be a wild game, but in the end, Minnesota would come up short.  No matter how many times Adam Weber threw the ball to Eric Decker (who is in his 19th year at Minnesota), the Gophers were still destined to blow it.  And blow it they did.  And guess what...not one person on the face of the Milky Way Galaxy was surprised. 

4) Clemson at Maryland.  Both these teams are the same dumb, predictable team.  They both lose every game they are supposed to win.  Maryland won, but what does that even mean?  If Clemson would have won, it would have been the exact same result.  One team is 2-3 and the other is 3-2?  They should both be 2.5-2.5.  I don't even know what that means, but the point is that these two teams should be stricken from Division I college football and never allowed on television or radio or in the newspapers ever again.  Memo to ESPN: throw out all your files on these two teams and move on.

5) Michigan at Michigan State.  With one exception to the rule, Michigan State actually won this game.  But, we still have to harp on the fact that the Spartans, as usual, tried their hardest to lose.  It just turned out that Michigan is f***in' terrible and they were a bit better at losing.  Michigan State held a 20-6 advantage with five min left in regulation and coughed it up with the precision only a habitual loser can display.  First, after a smart fumble by Michigan State, one of Michigan's slow, weak receivers caught a pass and slowly and weakly ran through about four Spartan tackle attempts without even trying.  Then, the Spartans gave up a game-tying touchdown in the pouring down rain.  Garbage.  Both teams = garbage.  Michigan State won in OT after Tate Forcier threw a pass into octuple coverage in the end zone and got picked off...and then Michigan missed 18 tackles on some unknown garbage Spartan running back for the game-winning touchdown.  Whoopee.

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