I'm not a college football fan.
I have no biases. The SEC has good teams and bad teams. The Big Ten Plus One has decent teams and bad teams. The Pac-10 is all right, but the Pac-10 is also terrible. The Big 12 wins games every week, and they lose games every week.
Conference supremacy is irrelevant to me. It matters almost as much as who wins the National Championship Game, because God knows that fans of Other Football Factory University would argue to the death that their team could easily beat the National Champions.
It probably doesn't help that my school hasn't had a football team in 50 years either.
All that said, one aspect of the college game does intrigue me.
I'm talking about the giant upset.
Oregon State beat Southern Cal Thursday night. In case you missed it.
Of course, I would've missed it if it was just another USC blowout. But the Beavers were winning by 21 as the game went to halftime.
"Great," I thought to myself. "I hope Oregon State wins just so all the USC fans on Bleacher Report have to be quiet for a little while."
The Trojans came out in the second half, and it looked like the upset wasn't going to happen. They quickly cut the deficit to seven, and I figured, "Oh well. I'll just watch the rest of the Brewers game. USC's going to win by 28." Back to the Brewers.
So there I was, hanging on every pitch until Jesse Sanchez hung a pitch to Ryan Braun that he deposited into the left field bleachers for a walk-off grand slam. No big deal or anything.
Out of curiosity, I checked back on the football game, and the Beavers were punting to USC from midfield, still holding a seven-point lead. Mark Sanchez had a chance to lead his squad full of super-recruits to score a tying touchdown.
"Here we go," says I. "Time for these guys to show Oregon State who's boss."
Instead, Sanchez threw an interception that got returned down to the two-yard line. On the next play, anti-super-recruit and true freshman Jacquizz Rodgers (great name, by the way) scored another touchdown with just under three minutes to play.
That's when I knew it was probably over. Beaver fans started flowing down from their seats onto the sidelines, waiting for the final whistle. USC did score again, but after a failed onside kick with 1:20 left and only one timeout left, it was only a matter of three snaps.
As I've said, no college football team is really "my team" the way the Packers and the Brewers are "my team." I follow the Wisconsin Badgers vaguely, but I usually concede that they'll lose some big game on the road, which means they won't ever play for a national championship.
So every week, I hope some small school can oust one of the top 10 teams, just to see the regularly bullied (Oregon State got dominated by Penn State recently) turn the tables on the perennial bullies (Virginia? Ohio State? Pick on someone your own size, USC).
This week, I got even more than I usually hope for. An unranked squad beat the top team in the nation. It couldn't get any better than that.
Unless TCU beats Oklahoma on Saturday.
1 comments Last one added 9 months ago — Leave a Comment
Joe Schmoe 9 months ago
Yep. The old hype virus strikes again! Earlier this season it hit the Buckeyes hard. They questioned why - considering they had 19 returning veterans, two Heisman candidates (Wells and Boeckman), a massive offensive line and King James Laurinaitis - it was even necessary for them to show up to play. After all, the media hyped them as the greatest team in history.
And now the Trojans fall victim to hype-nosis. I can hear the team at last week's practices:
"Why the heck do we even have to bother playing Oregon State? Everyone knows we are the greatest team in the history of college football. Can't we just head to Miami and get our trophy now?"
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