College Football Angst Watch 2024: Week 8
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.
The State of Angst
It may just be my perpetual state of anxiety and neurosis, but I have the urge to go outside and start screaming, “repent! Repent! The end is nigh,” when I look at college football standings. Also ambiently. But that’s another column.
The top five of the AP Poll is fine. Oregon, Georgia, Penn State, Ohio State, and Texas. Okay. Makes sense to me. These are programs that have been good for a very, very long time and are expected to be competitive at a high level year in and year out. It makes sense intuitively. Penn State is a little surprising, but it doesn’t make me think I’m in some kind of Rick and Morty-ass parallel universe where pizza is people and people are pizza.
Miami, Tennessee, LSU, and Clemson come next. This also tracks with known reality. LSU and Clemson are highly competitive teams that have been retooling after very successful seasons four or five years ago. Miami and Tennessee were once lauded programs that fell into deep dark mediocrity pits sometime around 2003 but have been poised for a comeback that’s been coming any day now for the last 20 years.
#10 is where things start getting weird. Iowa State? The Cyclones? In Ames, Iowa? That’s a real city? With a university? With a top 10 team? This late in the season? That can’t be right. That hasn’t happened since the COVID-addled 2020 season which was fake and silly and shouldn’t be taken seriously by anyone. And if you don’t count that it’s been 20 years since they were nationally relevant, but even that barely counts because they only spent five minutes in the top 10 before they got blown up by a cruise missile disguised as an Oklahoma Sooners football program.
And what’s this? BYU at #11? They haven’t been ranked this high since the COVID-addled 2020 season which was fake and silly and shouldn’t shouldn’t be taken seriously by anyone. If we don’t count that, they haven’t been ranked this high since September 13, 2009, the same night Kanye West famously took the microphone from pop star/Travis-Kelce’s-future-girlfriend Taylor Swift and said, “imma let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time. One of the best videos of all time!”
And don’t get me started on Indiana being at #13. They’ve been abjectly terrible with the exception the COVID-addled 2020 season which was fake and silly and shouldn’t shouldn’t be taken seriously by anyone. And if we don’t count that, then they haven’t been ranked this high since Halloween 1987, a year where no child would dress up as Superman because Superman IV: The Quest for Peace had just come out.
I am an overly analytical and rational person but when I look at this triumvirate of COVID popping up again and get unnerved. It feels like a sign that something bad is going to happen. I feel like Godzilla staring up at King Ghidorah, shrieking because my eyes have laid upon a three headed dragon from outer space that should not be on this Earth. The problem is I don’t have laser breath to shoot at it.
Then I see Alabama, Michigan, and Florida State cratering and I recall Revelation 16:19 (which I definitely remembered and did not have to look up). “The great city [of Babylon] was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell.”
I will get concerned if a fourth team who is traditionally an afterthought but did really, really well in 2020 starts to make waves. I’ll declare them the four horsemen of the college football apocalypse. I’ll tell everyone who will listen it’s a sign private equity is about to buy out all the universities and turn them into crypto scams with football programs as opposed to stock market investment scams with football programs. I will write an inordinate amount of words about who is the white horse, the red horse, the black horse, and the pale horse which, when you think about it, is really just another shade of white horse.
Colorado (Still Unranked in AP Poll)
This week’s result: Beat Arizona, 34-7.
Recap of the game: Colorado finished the last game with a subzero rushing total. That is not ideal. This week, Arizona allowed Colorado to run for 148 yards on them and the only thing worse than finishing with a subzero rushing total is getting clobbered by a team with a subzero rushing total. This is the most embarrassing thing to happen to Arizona since they made a $240 million accounting error.
Fanbase Angst Level = 1 out of 10 (Baseline 5, -4 they ran the ball!!!)
This team is as angsty as: The high school “crippled kid” who just suplexed a kid who failed Introduction to Accounting.
Colorado fans can relax about: Heisman contender Travis Hunter left the game with an injury, but will be available to play during the next game. Wait. Hold on. I wrote that last week too.
Colorado fans should angst about: Travis Hunter being injury prone could become a problem damaging his Heisman Trophy odds.
Colorado’s next game: The Cincinnati Bearcats come to Boulder. For a Big 12 conference game. Because that’s the reality we exist in now.
USC (Not Ranked in the AP Poll)
This week’s result: Lost to Maryland, 29-28.
Recap of the game: Every once in a while, a sports commentators will say something with just the right inflection and just the right combination of words that it sticks in your mind forever. There’s a new quote entering that pantheon: “OH NO! DISASTER! WHAT A BAD IDEA!” You’d expect whoever had the DISASTER must’ve lost the game. You’d be wrong. USC found a way to lose, leaving them 3-4 on the year and 1-4 in conference play. Four of their last five games seem extremely winnable which means they are going to find new and inventive ways to drop three of them.
Fanbase Angst Level = 10 out of 10 (Baseline 5, +5 OH NO! DISASTER! WHAT A BAD IDEA!)
This team is as angsty as: OH NO! DISASTER! WHAT A BAD IDEA!
USC fans can relax about: OH NO! DISASTER! WHAT A BAD IDEA!
USC fans should angst about: OH NO! DISASTER! WHAT A BAD IDEA!
USC’s next game: Rutgers will travel all the way from New Jersey to play USC in LA Memorial Coliseum at 8:00 PM PT on a Friday because USC joining the Big Ten has meant DISASTER! WHAT A BAD IDEA!
Texas A&M (Still #14 in the AP Poll)
This week’s result: Beat Mississippi State, 34-24
Recap of the game: Texas A&M won the football game because Mississippi State is bad at football. They have not won a game against a Division-IA opponent since November 18, 2023 and I refuse to talk about them until they do.
Fanbase Angst Level = 3 out of 10 (Baseline 5, +5 for years of disappointment, -7 for they even technically play a game)
This team is as angsty as: George Costanza pitching a show about nothing
Texas A&M fans can relax about: Having had to play a game this week.
Texas A&M fans should angst about: Having to play a game next week.
Texas A&M’s next game: #8 LSU comes to College Station.
Teh Ohio State University (Down to #4 in 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: Bye week
Recap of the game: Football players and athletes in general seem to be more often highly religious than not, and I think it’s kind of a hack premise to joke about, but I find it very funny that an Ohio State running back went on a podcast and said last week’s loss to Oregon is going to re-strengthen the team’s faith in Christ because haven’t you ever heard of the problem of evil?
Fanbase Angst Level: 12,050 out of 10 (Baseline 5, +1 for living in Ohio, +3 for the Cleveland Browns suck this year, +10,943 for having lost to Michigan three years in a row, +201 for the problem of evil)
This team is as angsty as: Saint Augustine tying himself into knots trying to come up with ways to rationalize how killing people in war doesn’t violate the “thou shalt not kill” commandment because protestants weren’t around yet to simply rewrite it into “thou shalt not murder.”
Ohio State fans can relax about: Michigan is bad. Really bad. I cannot even begin to describe how bad they are. This Michigan team is not beating any other team this year, let alone this Ohio State team.
Ohio State fans should angst about: Wouldn’t it be funny if they did?
Ohio State’s next victim: Nebraska.