Angst Watch 2024: Week 2
♫♫♫ You know I used to be troubled, but I finally saw the light / Now I don't worry 'bout a thing 'cause I know nothing's gonna be alright! ♫♫♫
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote Existential Angst Watch 2024, which was a guide to teams likely to cause their fanbases an existential crisis: Colorado, USC, Texas A&M, Teh Ohio State University, and the PAC-2’s Oregon State and Washington State.
This is weekly follow-up on those teams—with the exception of the PAC-2 teams because I think writing about two teams being sacrificed on the altar of hypercapitalism Aztec-style is neither fun nor funny.
The State of Angst
Week two is where we start to form a picture of what a team really is. We begin to see what they want to do on offense, how they want to stop you on defense, and whether they’ll compete for championships or become the butt of jokes on Twitter.
The buy games continued, but we were lucky enough to get exactly one marquee game. It was between top ten teams too. The #3 ranked Texas Longhorns traveled to Ann Arbor, Michigan to take on the defending champions, the #10 ranked Michigan Wolverines.
After failing to score any points on an opening drive that involved several flukey plays and an inexplicably blocked field goal, Texas pants’d Michigan on national television. The Longhorns ran circles around the defense and watching Michigan’s offense go up against the Texas defense was like watching a big cartoon character hold a tiny cartoon character at arm’s length by plonking a hand on the attacker’s forehead. There’s a lot to be said about Michigan’s on-field performance, but this newsletter is more interested on the reaction to it.
Some percentage of football fans unrelated to U of M are trying to use this as evidence that the sign stealing was the primary reason for the previous year’s national championship, though one would think it has more to do with losing to the NFL players who accounted for three-quarters of the offensive production and next to nothing to do with a practice that everyone in the sport engages in.
Many Michigan fans, meanwhile, are clambering for a quarterback change and hooting and hollering incoherently about buying gold because the sky is falling and the US dollar is fake. Author John U. Bacon repeatedly describes Michigan’s fanbase as being “not happy unless they’re unhappy,” so I’m glad to see these folks are finally able to get back to their roots.
Others, including your author, are taking a more zen approach. 2024 was always going to be a bridge year, even if it looks like it will be considerably rockier than expected. But the program’s modus operandi (develop undervalued players, Moneyball-style, alongside a smaller sprinkling of surefire stars) means that peaks and valleys are built into the experience. Plus I can’t hear the trash talk over the sound of an angelic choral hum that plays in my head every time I think of the previous few years because, frankly, when your team wins a national title, you’re not in a position to loudly complain about them for at least a year.
Colorado (Unranked in AP Poll)
This week’s result: Lost to rival Nebraska, 28-10.
Recap of the game: Last week I speculated that Colorado’s offensive line had improved from a turnstile to a sticky turnstile. It turns out it’s still just a regular turnstile. Nebraska’s defense suffocated the run and the pass and came away with 5 sacks on Sheuder Sanders (though it felt like much more). After the game, Sheuder subtly criticized his O-line during the postgame press conference, which is not a great way to motivate the guys trying to protect you from 250 to 300 pound murder machines. Between the team’s poor performance on the field and recent reporting that compares the program’s culture to Fight Club, it’s hard to envision Deion Sanders’s stint in Boulder lasting much longer than it takes to get his QB son declared for the NFL draft.
Fanbase Angst Level = 11 out of 10 (Baseline 5, +5 for oh god everything is falling apart, +1 for rivalry loss)
This team is as angsty as: A house flipper being told you can’t sell a house with toxic mold on the walls—especially if you’re the guy who painted the toxic mold on the walls.
Colorado fans can relax about: Those sky high expectations to start the year. They aren’t going to get met.
Colorado fans should angst about: Who do you hire to clean up the mess Deion Sanders is making?
Colorado’s next game: Traveling to Fort Collins to play Colorado State.
USC (#11 in AP Poll)
This week’s result: Beat Utah State 48-0 at home.
Recap of the game: There’s a video game called Ghost of Tsushima that’s very loosely based on the Mongol invasions of Japan in the late 13th century. The game opens with these samurai going to meet some Mongols who have landed on a beach. A samurai walks up to a Mongol and is like, “hello, I am a samurai, I am here to fight you with dignity and honor” and the Mongol responds by throwing alcohol on him and lighting a match. That’s kind of what this game felt like. Hammering home the sense of apocalypse, the Los Angeles heatwave caused a power outage. All the lights on the north side of the stadium went out, delaying a fourth quarter that pretty much everybody would have been fine with simply not playing.
Fanbase Angst Level = 1 out of 10. (Baseline 5, -10 for picking up right where they left off last week, +1 for LA traffic, +2 for the heatwave that’s cooking LA, +2 let’s see what this team in front of real competition again)
This team is as angsty as: An agent who just stole a client from a rival firm but is pathologically incapable of experiencing joy.
USC fans can relax about: The heatwave. Forecast says it will abate by Tuesday.
USC fans should angst about: Sample size. Still. The offense seems as good as ever but we still need one more test to find out if the defense is for real.
USC’s next game: The Trojans take next week off, then travel to Ann Arbor the week after to humiliate play the Michigan Wolverines.
Texas A&M (Unranked in AP Poll)
This week’s result: Murdered McNeese State, 52-10, at home.
Recap of the game: After losing to Notre Dame last week in disappointing fashion, The Texas A&M Aggies mashed McNeese for 333 yards on the ground. They scored touchdowns on their first five possessions and ended the first half up 38-0. They could have stopped there, but they scored another two touchdowns while allowing McNeese to score a token 10 points. McNeese is not a Division IA school, and they did not win a single game in 2023. Obviously Texas A&M did not learn or improve much from this outing, but they vented frustration, kind of like that short scene in Short Term 12 where two characters throw around an inflatable punching bag.
Fanbase Angst Level = 9 out of 10 (Baseline 5, +5 for last week’s performance, -1 for throwing around an inflatable punching bag feels good)
This team is as angsty as: Your weird republican cousin who is so mad at “woke” he visits a rage rooms every Tuesday to smash eggs with a hammer.
Texas A&M fans can relax about: The offensive line. They may or may not be excellent, but at least they’re better than a defensive line that did not win a single game in 2023.
Texas A&M fans should angst about: Their loss to Notre Dame is starting to look very unimpressive; Notre Dame lost to NIU, a team that had never beat a ranked team
Texas A&M’s next game: Traveling to Gainesville, FL to take on the Florida Gators.
Teh Ohio State University (#3 in AP Poll, down 1)
(NOTE: Teh Ohio State University is not a typo. It’s just what I insist on calling them ever since they hired a doofus crypto guy as their commencement speaker.)
This week’s result: Texas beat Michigan 31-12. And also Ohio State played somebody.
Recap of the game: Ohio State won a football game against Western Michigan University. Who cares what the margin was? Fiftysomething, probably. Doesn’t matter. This is just methadone when you haven’t beaten the Michigan Wolverines in three years. What really matters to Buckeyes nation is how badly Michigan wet the bed against Texas. “Not so easy when you can’t steal signs,” screams the Buckeye who I can’t hear over the angelic choral hum that plays in my head every time I think about Michigan’s 2023 national championship.
Fanbase Angst Level: 10,948 out of 10 (Baseline 5, +1 for living in Ohio, -1 for Michigan under performing, +10,943 for having lost to Michigan three years in a row)
This team is as angsty as: That street sweeper driver who laughs at Bart Simpson’s misfortunes before immediately driving down a subway entrance.
Ohio State fans can relax about: Michigan’s ceiling. It is low.
Ohio State fans should angst about: The possibility of losing to Michigan again.
Ohio State’s next victim: Marshall.
More Existential Misery Around College Football:
The #1 ranked Georgia Bulldogs (who have lost four games in as many years) played the Tennessee Tech Eagles (who exist). Tech’s head coach said before the game, “if I was being honest, I would tell you that I’m not thrilled to be heading to Athens, Georgia, this weekend, so I’ll be dishonest and say I’m very excited o be playing a game in Sanford Stadium in front of 93,000.” The coach might have been more enthusiastic about their impending ass kicking if Georgia paid them more than $475,000 for the privilege of getting vaporized by this year’s shoe-in for the national title.
Notre Dame lost 16-14 to Northern Illinois, a team which had never beaten a top 10 opponent in the program’s 59 year history. Notre Dame paid Northern Illinois $1.45 million to come play in South Bend, which isn’t even half of what you’d have to pay me to visit that city and Touchdown Jesus, which is probably the best argument in favor of Byzantine iconoclasm.
Iowa State beat rival Iowa 20-19 thanks to a last second field goal. Iowa’s performance last week made it look like Iowa had finally mastered the forward pass after thirty years of Amish living, but they’ve regressed back to their mean.
Arkansas out gained Oklahoma State 648-385. Which would be really impressive except Arkansas did not win the game.
After struggling with the University of Idaho last week, national title contender Oregon struggled with Boise State this week, needing a last minute field goal to win 37-34. Oregon is either not as good as everyone thought they were going to be or they are allergic to people from Idaho the same way I am allergic to cats (my eyes water, my throat clogs, I mutter “no, no, really, I’m fine”).
LSU’s head coach and all around dislikable guy Brian Kelly grabbed his kicker by the jersey to yell at him in the face.
Auburn lost to Cal—as in Cal, Berkley—21-14 at home. At least twelve wives considering divorce had to listen to their husbands call Auburn’s quarterback, who threw a staggering 4 interceptions, “undercover antifa.”
The University of Louisiana, Monroe beat the University of Alabama, Birmingham, 32-6. ULM is coached by Bryant Vincent, who was UAB’s interim head coach until he was passed over for the job by UAB’s current head coach, Trent Dilfer, a man best known for being an NFL quarterback with a pulse. Before Dilfer, a man with no collegiate coaching experience whatsoever, took over, UAB had 6 straight winning seasons. They are 3-9 against Divison-IA opponents since hiring him.