THE MAIN CHARACTER, Week 5: The $95 million man

Each weekend in college football, there is one main character. The goal is to never be it.

Welcome to the weekly college football wrapup that recognizes this sport is about nothing but feelings, primarily about enjoying the bad ones suffered by people besides you.

It’s nothing but feelings, all the way down. Made-up polls determine which teams get the most attention and best postseason invites. Friendship clubs founded 100 years ago determine which teams get to call themselves “powers.” Recruiting is about the feelings of 17-year-old boys, and even head coaches can vanish because some booster gifted the wrong color BMW.

So the college football internet is a potent stew. One does not watch one’s team win and then log off. No. One must maximize the advantage, storming rivals whose teams did not win, because the actually impactful Feelings Market never stops fluctuating. And if one’s team loses, there’s always punching down on somebody who had a worse weekend. Almost always.

Stream live college football games every week this season from conferences across the country on ESPN+.

Let’s see which of this week’s cast members earned MAIN CHARACTER honors. This week saw the season’s most hotly contested title yet.

Lane Kiffin

Difficult to evaluate this candidacy, because Ole Miss’ head coach has spent a decade actively campaigning to be the Main Character. He’s the only figure who can sometimes manipulate this status for his own benefit.

That did not happen on Saturday.

With the game in hand and nothing better to do, Alabama remembered mascot Big Al owns a popcorn costume, typically stored at the basketball gym.

But that wasn’t enough. Kiffin continued to draw all heat away from his players and/or hog attention for himself and/or use some witchcraft known as “math,” calling for five fourth-down conversion attempts. The Rebels converted two of them, but on the whole, sports fans seemed afflicted with the bizarre delusion that punting the football to Alabama’s offense would’ve better delayed the inevitable.

Beyond analytics, it’s just the Ole Miss way.

Oregon

That’s how Stanford took No. 3 Oregon to overtime. Spamming goal line fades, the most success-averse play in all of football. That’s gotta suck!

Honestly, it’s kinda weird that Oregon isn’t this week’s Main Character. The No. 3 team lost to an unranked team in a stupid way! That should be Main Character stuff for sure! Ohio State was the Main Character after losing to this very same Oregon team!

But I’m only here to report on how the internet has reacted. And Oregon is in the Pac-12, which barely exists on the internet. So the viewing public seemed to react to the Ducks’ downfall with something more like acknowledgment than gleeful derision.

Miami

Clank.

Notre Dame

It’s also pretty wild that Notre Dame got stomped at home by a non-power team, yet Notre Dame isn’t the Main Character. The main reason for that: This game’s outcome just made everyone wonder how the College Football Playoff committee will conspire to exclude Cincinnati.

Still, this was a special result and must be savored.

 

 

Further recognition goes to Cincy’s social media team for repurposing ancient quotes by former Bearcats head coach Brian Kelly …

… and for referencing current Irish head coach Brian Kelly saying he likes to give his former schools “the opportunity to play Notre Dame.”

Florida

One week after a genuinely encouraging loss to Alabama, the Gators chased that same feeling again, but found more loss than encouraging.

And I dunno where else to discuss UConn-Vanderbilt in this post, so let’s do it right here. The Shutdown Fullcast’s four co-hosts attended what might be the worst FBS-vs.-FBS game ever hosted by an SEC stadium. It was a total blast, well worth the $1 tickets, because win-loss records are societal constructs and all that matters is whether both teams care. But this brings us to a sick individual who chose to root for both Florida and UConn:

Anyway.

Oh right.

Urban Meyer

If I’m being honest, the former Ohio State coach was the Main Character of college football Twitter on Saturday, after video and photos emerged of him having a really great time at one of his Ohio restaurants. But he’s the NFL’s problem now! For at least another week or two! Bye!!!

This remains the meme image of the weekend, however:

LSU

Ed Orgeron became the first coach to lose to Auburn in Baton Rouge since 1999. On paper, that’s bad. But paper is static, concrete, cold, fixed, and logical. The experience of losing to Auburn has nothing to do with any of those things.

I didn’t watch this game live, but I swear I’ve scrolled past about 50 different highlights of Bo Nix doing this sorta thing to LSU, even though he only threw for 255 yards. He is my favorite college football player.

At this moment, it’s nearly impossible to believe LSU fielded arguably the best team in college football history two seasons ago. We can nod our heads at this statement and recognize it as a valid argument, sure. But believing it? Tall order.

And it might only get worse from here on out.

Wisconsin

There will be many candidates for the title of 2021’s most overrated team (Clemson is your current favorite), but the Badgers are making a run for it, tumbling from No. 15 to 1-3.

That doesn’t tell the whole story, though. Some soaring underdog like Iowa State slipping back down to earth? That happens. Some SEC West team starting around the top 10 and then imploding? Annual event. But Wisconsin possibly missing a bowl? What! UW hasn’t spent the holidays on the couch since 2001, a streak trailing only Georgia and Oklahoma.

And here is my favorite sports fan of the year so far. The Badgers would’ve been wise to emulate her fighting spirit.

 

Arkansas

 

The Main Character: Jimbo Fisher

Cheer up, everybody else!

This column’s first controversial choice all year, perhaps? You could make the case for several figures, but I think the No. 15 Aggies’ loss to Mississippi State made the internet swoon even harder than upset losses by No. 3 Oregon and No. 10 Florida did.

For one, there’s the money thing. In 2018, A&M gave Jimbo Fisher the most demented contract in the history of the demented sport, $75 million, completely guaranteed no matter what. Fisher then went 26-9 through three seasons, showing signs of possibly becoming “worth” $7.5 million per year, at least if we pretend college football coaches can ever be “worth” that much more than players are.

And then, whether to keep LSU’s paws off Jimbo or just to throw some money around because YEEHAW, the Aggies bumped that number up to $9-plus million per year, all in anticipation of Fisher getting over the Bama hump.

2021 A&M has now been buried beneath the Arkansas and Mississippi State humps before even getting to the Bama hump.

How are fans handling all this? Tremendously, is how.

Things are so bad, even the 12th Man is catching strays.

Florida State fans, already buoyed by their first victory of the season, got to put on Olivia Rodrigo’s “Deja Vu” as their ex broke out some old tricks.

And now let’s part ways on this, the weekend’s tweet that made me flinch the hardest:

 

Previously in THE MAIN CHARACTER

We recommend interesting sports viewing/streaming and betting opportunities. If you sign up for a service by clicking one of the links, we may earn a referral fee. Newsrooms are independent of this relationship and there is no influence on news coverage.

[mm-video type=video id=01fh3me65g1tvqpxegf2 playlist_id=none player_id=none image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01fh3me65g1tvqpxegf2/01fh3me65g1tvqpxegf2-63d2ea2210f73c01b19aff2e584c706b.jpg]