College Football Angst Watch 2024: Week 6
Dancing Bears and Tin Foil Hats
Angst Watch is a weekly recap of the existential misery caused by college football. It’s also my ongoing tracking of Colorado, USC, Texas A&M, and Ohio State, four programs I thought were going to cause their fanbases a great deal of misery but it seems like I was only half right so far.
These usually publish Monday mornings, but I was busy this week because the owner of the New York Jets hired me to be like George Clooney in Up in the Air and fire the head coach, a move NFL executives are calling “doesn’t seem well thought out” and “I don’t see what this does for them.”
The State of Angst
I am once again semi-seriously calling for a congressional investigation into football officiating.
I could use this space to write about how how seven teams ranked in the AP Poll were upset this week, with five of them being in the top 11. I could point out, as
did in his newsletter, that this is biggest top dog bloodfest in over 15 years.I could use this space to write about the angst of the Alabama Crimson Tide, who were the number one college football squad in all the land until they lost to Vanderbilt, a university so historically bad at football that this was the only banner they had their stadium in 2019:
You know what else I could be writing about? I could be writing about how Vanderbilt is led by a certifiably insane quarterback who once played for New Mexico State and publicly urinated on the logo of the rival New Mexico Lobos because this is a capital-I Insane sport played by capital-I Insane people because we live in a capital-I Insane world.
But no. I don’t get to write about that. I have to talk about officiating because of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
I say this because of something that happened, as things on the Atlantic Coast typically do, in Berkeley, California.
The Cal Golden Bears, one of the ACC’s most recent additions because we live in a Capital-I Insane world, were up twenty-five points over the visiting top ten Miami Hurricanes. Until they weren’t. Miami narrowed the game to a 38-32 affair late in the fourth quarter.
The referees employed by the ACC to officiate the game decided not to call a targeting penalty when Cal’s quarterback took what appeared to be head-to-head contact on a crucial play. Had the foul been called, Cal could’ve iced the game and gone home with a historic win.
The announcers were up in arms. Cal fans were furious. Adding insult to injury, Miami marched down the field and scored on another play that should have been negated due to a blatant but inexplicably uncalled penalty.
Curious officiating bailed out Miami the previous week too. Virginia Tech threw a hail mary which was ruled a touchdown, but then reversed during review, with the explanation being that the Virginia Tech receiver did not complete the process of the catch. Tech’s coach said he did not receive an explanation on the field or in the locker room and called the ACC’s later public explanation “confusing at best.”
The problem with targeting and catching rules is that they are vague and confusing. Targeting, pass interference, holding, and what constitutes a simple catch all come with a lot of gray area. Football operates on a vibes-based theory of law, which means referees don’t always call a game in a way that feels fair to them, but maybe not to anyone else who has eyes and ears.
But coaches and players are, by rule, not allowed to criticize officials in public forums. Should a coach who just got robbed of a huge win say to the media during a post game press conference something fairly tame like, I don’t know, “I am bitterly disappointed in the officiating today,” he’ll get slapped with a $10,000 fine by his team’s conference. Maybe if he was just disappointed instead of bitterly disappointed it would have been a $5,000 fine? I digress.
I’d argue that the problem here is in the lack of transparency. When a play goes to review, like those mentioned above, no one is privy to the conversation that goes on between the officials rendering a judgement. The logic that goes into the decision making forever stays in a black box.
Meanwhile, Virginia Tech and Cal fans alike have pointed out on their Twitter threads and message boards that the head of officiating in their and Miami’s conference grew up in Miami and continues to call the city home.
They’ve also pointed out that Miami is the conference’s only highly ranked team. If anyone will reach the playoff at the end of the season, and generate lucrative TV money for the conference, it’s Miami. The ACC, so the conspiracy goes, is tipping the scales where it can to keep Miami undefeated.
The conspiracy doesn’t hold muster for one reason: ACC officials are just not very good at their job. Just look at this 247 Sports message board thread from 2012 where posters discussed which conference organizes the worst referees. ACC officials are not an especially competent set of people.
But this paranoia is not altogether unreasonable. Graft, greed, and corruption are endemic in American institutions. The people who run football are going to have to start considering ways to build trust in its officiating systems. What’s at stake isn’t just bragging rights anymore. Conferences, which organize what are supposed to be impartial judges, have a financial interest in their top brands making it to the postseason, and thus have a clear and easy to articulate motivation for tipping the scales.
It strikes me as unlikely that this is actually happening. There are no smokey back rooms anywhere on this planet. But whether or not bad actors are actually manipulating outcomes isn’t the question. What’s at issue is the very clear potential for impropriety.
For better or worse—and it’s probably worse—gambling is a $11 billion industry, and growing. At some point gamblers are going to want guarantees that everything is on the up-and-up. It isn’t like high level sports is completely immune to chicanery from officials. Just ask the NBA. At some point somebody is going to have to regulate this.
Of course, this is America, the land of self-regulation and the wink-wink-nudge-nudge.
The XFL, of all things, presented the best solution here. It was really quite simple. When a play goes to review, you televise the deliberation process. There is, of course, a drawback here for the officials in that it threatens to expose any incompetency for a national television audience, which is why it hasn’t happened yet and probably never will. Never underestimate a bureaucrat’s desire to avoid public humiliation.
So, and I say this with a heavy sigh, I guess teams will simply have to not give up 29 points in a half if they want to avoid putting the game in the hands of the referees.
Colorado (Still Unranked in the AP Poll)
This week’s result: None. Colorado was on a bye.
Recap of the game: Colorado had a week off. Star QB and coach’s son Shedeur Sanders went to Vegas, where he met Las Vegas Raiders owner and bowl cut champion Mark Davis. Davis told Sanders that he’d “seen all your games,” which made me wonder how many times he’s used that line on NFL players.
Fanbase Angst Level = 1 out of 10 (Baseline 5, -3 for they have a defensive back who should win the Heisman, -1 for I’ve seen all your games)
This team is as angsty as: A guy on vacation who cannot wait to get home and show his very coworkers his slideshow.
Colorado fans can relax about: Whether or not Mark Davis has seen all of Shedeur Sanders games.
Colorado fans should angst about: They have to play a team with a pulse next week.
Colorado’s next game: The #18 Kansas State Wildcats come to Boulder, Colorado.
USC (Kicked Out of the AP Poll)
This week’s result: Lost to the Minnesota Golden Gophers, 24-17.
Recap of the game: The Trojans had to fly all the way out to Minneapolis and got another rude welcoming to the Big Ten. Minnesota’s statistically elite pass defense forced two interceptions and held the USC air raid to a measly 200 passing yards on 38. On offense, Minnesota ran the Michigan playbook and ran through USC’s face.
The game went to overtime and Minnesota won on a controversial touchdown that USC head coach Lincoln Riley took exception to, castigating a journalist as unprofessional for asking a player during the postgame press conference for his take on the call. Journos have taken this as a personal slight, but I’d argue Riley was just trying to save his guy from getting a $10,000 fine.
Fanbase Angst Level = 13 out of 10 (Baseline 5, +1 for LA real estate prices, +2 for oh no the defense can’t stop the run, +3 for oh no we joined a conference full of teams that do nothing but run, +3 for hey it’s a journalist get ‘im!")
This team is as angsty as: Donald Trump complaining about the mainstream media being “very unfair, very nasty.”
USC fans can relax about: Winning next week. It’s not happening.
USC fans should angst about: The possibility that the other team might run the football at any moment.
USC’s next game: #4 Penn State and their top 20 rushing attack comes to visit USC in Los Angeles.
Texas A&M (Up to #15 in the AP Poll)
This week’s result: Beat #9 Missouri, 41-10.
Recap of the game: A&M has been breaking in Marcel Reed, a freshman QB I am extremely high on, but they swapped him out for the guy who entered the year with the starting job and only lost it due to injury. This guy proceeded to throw a nearly perfect game while the running backs and offensive line bulldozed the supposed elite Missouri defense like they were a foreclosed senior center. It’s almost like Texas A&M’s new head coach is good at his job or something. Maybe paying the last guy $77.5 million to turn in his keys was a good decision after all.
Fanbase Angst Level = 3 out of 10 (Baseline 5, +5 for years of disappointment, -3 for winning the biggest game on the schedule, -2 for the rest of the schedule is actually pretty easy, -2 for we’re in the top fifteen)
This team is as angsty as: A rich guy showing you his new rich guy house and is clearly Great Gatsby level depressed and the only way to talk him out of it is to tell him his rich guy house is really cool.
Texas A&M fans can relax about: The price of oil. A crunch is in the offing.
Texas A&M fans should angst about: Having enough booster money to pay Marcel Reed not to transfer after having to spend millions of dollars to fire the last coach.
Texas A&M’s next game: They enjoy a bye week, then take on Mississippi State, the worst team in the conference.
Teh Ohio State University (Still #2 in the AP Poll)
(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: Beat the Iowa Hawkeyes, 35-7.
Recap of the game: Stop me if you’ve heard this one. Ohio State struggled out of the gate before remembering how to football, then turned Iowa’s football program into a sticky black and yellow paste that they bottled up and mailed to the children’s hospital overlooking Iowa’s football stadium.
Fanbase Angst Level: 11,951 out of 10 (Baseline 5, +1 for living in Ohio, +3 for the Cleveland Browns suck this year, +100 for Michigan’s governor doing a weird thing with a Dorito, +10,943 for having lost to Michigan three years in a row)
This team is as angsty as: A rabbies stricken dog frothing at the mouth while facing a sad chew toy missing an eye.
Ohio State fans can relax about: Being embarrassed by Iowa.
Ohio State fans should angst about: The possibility they still somehow lose to Michigan.
Ohio State’s next victim game: Ohio State travels to Eugene, Oregon to stop beating on also rans and take on the #3 ranked Oregon Ducks.