Celebrating College Football's Spoiler Weekend
It was an unassuming Saturday. In fact, up until 10:11 p.m. Eastern time, one might have called it boring. Uneventful. Unsatisfying.
An average slate of football games played out as such with few exceptions. Although we love the sport regardless of the parameters, the harsh, simple reality of an ordinary week was settling in.
Then college football happened. Then it happened again.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
Hopefully you stuck around long enough to see it all unfold. In a matter of 60 minutes, two Top 10 teams fell—the latest purge in a season mighty comfortable with movement.
One was, in many ways, expected. The other was anything but.
For the second week in a row, a College Football Playoff hopeful lost on a bizarre, walk-off special teams play—the kind of play that unfolds in slow motion and generates equal amounts of destruction and euphoria. These kinds of moments don’t happen often—once a year, if we’re lucky. And yet, it happened again.
Last week, the Football Gods dealt Michigan the heartbreak. This week, it was Georgia Tech doing the dealing.
Yes, that Georgia Tech—the one that entered Week 8 with only two victories. The one that has acquired the label of one of the nation’s most disappointing teams this season.
With No. 9 Florida State tied with the Yellow Jackets, 16-16, deep in the fourth quarter at Bobby Dodd Stadium, Roberto Aguayo, the nation’s best kicker, set up for a long field goal that would have given the Seminoles the win.
With the kicker being the closest thing to a sure thing the sport has when it comes to field goals, it felt like Aguayo would drill the 56-yarder, even though his distance was being pushed. For another week, it felt as though Florida State would dodge a bullet and stay undefeated.
Then it happened.
Another week, another nail-biter decided with no time left and special teams on the field. This week, it was Georgia Tech’s Lance Austin taking the blocked field goal back 78 yards the other way to give the Yellow Jackets a 22-16 win.
Brandon Gaudin, the voice of Georgia Tech on IMG Sports Network, delivered the appropriate emotion for the moment through the radio waves:
After Austin scored, Georgia Tech head coach Paul Johnson unleashed a rare smile. His tongue fell out of his mouth. He tried to put the win into the appropriate words—moving past all the prior losses and disappointments that led to this moment.
“That’s what it’s all about,” Johnson said on the telecast following the win. “That’s college football.”
This was not an outcome we expected—not after Tech lost to Notre Dame, Duke, North Carolina, Clemson and Pittsburgh. In fact, prior to Florida State, the Yellow Jackets' best victory came against Tulane in Week 2. That was also their last win. That was a long time ago.
But despite the defeats, one after the next, Georgia Tech had shown signs of putting it together these past few weeks. And, yes, with quarterback Justin Thomas, the talent is still in place. The formula to produce unexpected results, like this one, was still very much alive.
USC knows all about this position. Once a team with national championship dreams, the Trojans are now without their head coach and have three losses to their logo.
Still, in welcoming No. 3 Utah to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, they were a slight favorite over the undefeated Utes on Saturday, per Odds Shark. It was a strange circumstance for a program still in search of solid footing. But again, there's that talent.
With all hopes for this season seemingly lost and many inside the program's walls looking ahead to next year, interim head coach Clay Helton’s team didn’t need a last-second miracle to conquer its opponent. It didn’t need one final touchdown drive, either.
Beginning in the middle of the first quarter, showing a solid serving of youth and speed—the kind of ability and potential that makes you wonder how it got to this point—USC clobbered Utah 42-24. Freshman linebacker Cameron Smith became a star before our eyes, picking off three Travis Wilson passes and returning one for a touchdown.
A late Utah score made this game look closer than it was. This was pure, uncut domination. By conquering the Pac-12’s final undefeated team, USC made the conference’s College Football Playoff hopes even murkier. (Not that the Trojans care. And they shouldn't.)
“Losing is not acceptable. We’re USC; we’re supposed to win,” linebacker Su’a Cravens told reporters following the game. “We’re not supposed to be 3-3.”
One could look at USC’s victory and simply note that the favorite won. One could also argue that the Trojans, with young talent jumping off the screen, were supposed to do this all along.
This could be said about both programs that upended Top 10 teams Saturday.
And yet, to do so wouldn't encapsulate the moment. It wouldn't do either performance the appropriate justice. Despite the fact both of these proud schools have had to reshape expectations, there’s something admirable about watching a team plop an M80 in the mailbox for no good reason at all and run away with a smile.
It’s about pride. It’s about possibility. It’s about playing for yourself and, selfishly, about the entertainment that hops in the sidecar and comes along for the ride. There will be no national championship for these two teams. There will be no trophy or NCAA-approved rings. But the moments will sit with us for a while.
They are the natural resources that power this giant ship known as college football. In the midst of a lifeless Saturday, at a time where excitement was completely lost, USC and Georgia Tech decided it was time to change all that. And now, with two Top 10 teams out of the most recent equation, one question remains.
Who's next?
Oh, we are not done. Dreams and expectations will continue to crumble, and programs will continue to push forward with cruel intentions—the mission to break hearts and carry on. For some, now two months into the year, it’s all that’s left.
When there is nothing left to lose, the anatomy of an upset is drastically simplified. And with so few sure things this deep into the season, this is not the last you've heard from a team you pronounced dead weeks ago.
Hail to the spoilers, Saturday and beyond.
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
