Angst Watch 2024: Week 3
I Know About the Florida State Red Solo Cup Guy Saga and So You Have to Too
A few 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 capitalism Aztec-style is neither fun nor funny.
The State of Angst
With week three, the narratives around college football are pretty well locked in. We know Texas, Alabama, Ole Miss, Ohio State, Georgia, and Tennessee are locked in as national title contenders, with a few outsiders who might make more sense putting in that category with a bit more in the way of sample size.
This was, for the most part, the last week of buy games, and the slate was fairly boring. South Carolina almost upset LSU, but couldn’t pull it off. Kentucky could have upended the playoff picture by beating an uncharacteristically sloppy #1 ranked Georgia, but their coach didn’t have the cojones to go for it on fourth down with three minutes left in the game. Georgia might have been better if their players didn’t keep getting arrested for reckless driving.
Week three is also the point where the season is functionally over for some teams. The party bus has engine knock and it’s no longer covered under warranty. The muffler’s smoking. The wheel rubber’s torn off and the sparks are flying as the rims rattle down the street. It’s going so fast you’d think a Georgia player is driving it, but no, it’s just the coaching staff of Florida State.
The Memphis Tigers beat the Seminoles 20-12 in Tallahassee (FSU paid Memphis $1.3 million to come to town). Sluggish doesn’t begin to describe the performance. At one point, Florida State’s quarterback had completed five passes on six attempts for a grand total of seven yards.
With this loss, Florida State made history as the first preseason top 10 team to start 0-3 against three unranked opponents, per CBS Sports’ Shehan Jeyarajah. Florida State has started 0-3 only three times in history. Two of them came under current head coach Mike Norvell. To underscore just how hot his seat is, his post-game press conference ended early because the fire alarm went off.
Vegas had Florida State’s win total over-under set at 9.5, and they now also hold the dubious distinction of being the first team to clinch the under this season.
The irony to all of this is that Florida State spent the offseason prattling on about how it was too good for its conference. They even sued their conference to try and get out of the contract. It’s going great. I predict the litigation will go on and on and then the contract will expire 2036, making it all a moot point anyway.
Speaking of moot points, here’s a story to illustrate how bad things are getting for FSU fans:
After the team lost its season opener to Georgia Tech, there was still a reasonable degree of confidence that Florida State would build on their success from last year and compete in the playoff this winter. So confident was a a user with the handle 321nole that he posted, “if Florida State loses to [Boston College] this weekend, I will eat dog shit out of a red solo cup with a spoon and post a video of me doing it. Book it!”
When it became abundantly clear during the Boston College game that Boston College was slow roasting Florida State’s ass in a crockpot, 321nole deleted his account, leading to two weeks of posts demanding this guy reinstate his account and eat the dog poop. As one Twitter user put it: “As far as I’m concerned FSU is cursed until that guy eats the dog shit.”
The Red Solo Cup Guy saga now involves authoritarian demagogue and bow tie enthusiast Tucker Carlson because, since being ousted from Fox News because Rupert Murdoch’s girlfriend liked him too much, one of his sponsors is Old Row.
“Dan,” you might be saying, “I am a normal and well-adjusted person who does not waste all his/her time on the internet. I have no idea what Old Row is. I’m guessing it’s a fascist themed deodorant?”
Well, I may not be normal or well-adjusted and I do waste all my time on the internet, but I also had no idea what Old Row is until I started following the Red Solo Cup Guy saga. It turns out it’s one of those right-wing college campus obsessed “humor” sites that aspires to be as funny as JD Vance.
At any rate, the good people at Old Row had Carlson read a statement that concluded like this:
“321nole, let me say this: the people of this country will hold you accountable for your actions and your promises; and, mark my words, you will eat that dog shit out of a red Solo cup, come hell or high water!
[Breaking kayfabe] “I would say if you did indeed make that claim, that promise, that wager, pull back a little bit, son. I mean, that’s a football game. Settle down.”
I hate with every fiber of my being that I’m about to say this, but: I agree with Tucker Carlson. Sports betting is bad and sports betting involving animal shit is really bad.
Colorado (Unranked in AP Poll)
This week’s result: Beat rival Colorado State, 28-9.
Recap of the game: While Colorado State came close to winning last year’s Rocky Mountain Showdown, they were not able to match their output this year and ultimately couldn’t compete with the Colorado Buffaloes. State’s defense was simply not athletic enough put the clamps on Colorado’s athletes, and their offense had to contend with too many injuries to keep up.
Bizarrely, with less than 90 seconds left in the game while up three scores, Colorado elected to take attempt several deep passes and turned the ball over rather than take a couple of knees and run out the clock like every other coach in the profession would have. Deion Sanders’s postgame press conference suggested Colorado was trying to run up the score in response to some rivalry chatter from State players before the game (which from what I could find seemed pretty anodyne). I’m not entirely sure who Sanders would have blamed if his quarterback son was injured on one of those unnecessary deep shots, but I bet he could invent an incredible way to pin it on the media.
Fanbase Angst Level = 9 out of 10 (Baseline 5, +5 for oh god everything is falling apart, -1 for rivalry win)
This team is as angsty as: An employer slapping together a job posting for a position they were not prepared to have to fill again.
Colorado fans can relax about: Losing to another rival.
Colorado fans should angst about: The easy part of the schedule is over.
Colorado’s next game: Baylor comes to Boulder.
USC (#11 in AP Poll)
This week’s result: USC did not beat anyone (they were on a bye).
Recap of the game: USC had the week off. They were probably busy practicing and, like, going to class or something (nerds). It’s also entirely possible that they took the week off and just hit the beach. Frankly, I don’t think they have to practice that hard for next week’s game.
Fanbase Angst Level = 2 out of 10 (Baseline 5, -5 for at the beach, +1 for LA real estate prices, +1 for deep down they know they might not actually be as good as they’ve looked)
This team is as angsty as: a visitor at a beach resort who ordered a piña colada 20 minutes ago and is beginning to worry it might never show up and—oh wait there it is.
USC fans can relax about: Their next opponent, Michigan, might be breaking in a quarterback who should have been starting for three weeks, but noooo the coaching staff just had to be clever instead of going with the obvious choice.
USC fans should angst about: Michigan ran the ball for 300+ yards last week, and it remains to be seen if USC’s defensive improvement extends to stopping teams that run the “big man make other big man move out of the way” style of offense.
USC’s next game: The Trojans travel to Ann Arbor to humiliate play the Michigan Wolverines.
Texas A&M (Ranked #25 in the AP Poll)
This week’s result: Beat Florida, 33-20, in Gainesville.
Recap of the game: Florida is a program in crisis. It lacks cohesion, identity, anything resembling a pulse. They recruit talented kids and then fail to elevate their game. The same could be said of Texas A&M heading into the season, but the Aggies are beginning to figure out who they are, having rushed for over three hundred yards two weeks in a row. they may have a genuinely good quarterback in freshman Marcel Reed, who went 11 of 17 for 178 yards as a passer while adding another 83 yards as a runner.
Fanbase Angst Level = 7 out of 10 (Baseline 5, +5 for years of disappointment, -1 for the new quarterback, -1 for the schedule is actually pretty easy, -1 for hey they’re ranked now!)
This team is as angsty as: A teenager recovering from a panic attack by repeating “it’s gonna be okay” over and over again while looking at diagrams of split zone runs.
Texas A&M fans can relax about: Program identity. It seems to be falling into place: Run the ball through the other guy’s face.
Texas A&M fans should angst about: Whether or not they’re going to be able to pull that off against their rival, the #1 Texas Longhorns, at the end of the season, or
Texas A&M’s next game: Bowling Green comes to College Station.
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: Ohio State did not beat anyone (they were on a bye).
Recap of the game: It was a bye, so Buckeyes around the country had nothing to do but hate watch Michigan, which at this point is kind of like watching a toddler learning to walk while secretly hoping he face plants on the coffee table.
Fanbase Angst Level: 10,951 out of 10 (Baseline 5, +1 for living in Ohio, +1 for no Buckeyes football to watch, +1 for the Cincinatti Bengals might suck this year, +1 for the Cleveland Browns definitely suck this year, -1 for Michigan under performing, +10,943 for having lost to Michigan three years in a row)
This team is as angsty as: A rabid dog barking at the mailman.
Ohio State fans can relax about: Michigan’s ceiling. It is very 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:
Alabama traveled to Madison, WI to
take onplayatomize the Wisconsin Badgers. Alabama was up 35-10 as the game entered the fourth quarter. Like many schools, Wisconsin has a tradition of playing a song to get the crowd pumped up at this point. Florida plays Tom Petty. Michigan plays Mr. Brightside. Wisconsin has played Jump Around for 25 years. The whole crowd is supposed to jump up and down as the song plays. In this instance, nobody on the Wisconsin sideline jumped around but the Alabama’s sure did.Portland State canceled Saturday’s game against South Dakota because of a whooping cough outbreak in the program. Portland State players came down with it on Thursday and were quarantined, but by that point a number of other players had been exposed. In a statement, the university said no athletes were seriously ill, but it remains unclear when or if this game will be rescheduled, or if Portland State will have enough of a roster to play Boise State next week.
Tennessee scored 37 points in the first quarter against Kent State. They ended up winning 71-0. I’ve been trying to get in touch with The Hague for hours but they won’t return my phone calls.
Ole Miss traveled to Winston-Salem to take on Wake Forest. They didn’t take them on as much as they nuked them by a score of 40-6. Wake Forest was supposed to visit Ole Miss next year, but instead paid Ole Miss a $1 million buyout to cancel the game. While it would be funny if this was because “losing by 34 points sucks, let’s never do that again,” the cancellation happened earlier in the week. This implies to me the staff of the highly selective university simply did not want to travel to Mississippi and frankly I don’t blame them because I’ve driven through that state and I would gladly pay $1 million dollars to never do that again.