THE MAIN CHARACTER, Week 12: The team of the year

Each week on college football Twitter, 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.

Florida

The image that follows this tweet is not from the Gators’ loss to Missouri, but from an earlier game this year. However, you should just let this one-two tweet combo work a little magic on you.

The Gators fired Mullen one day after a loss to a previously 5-5 Missouri, as well as one day after Mizzou head coach Eliah Drinkwitz delivered costumed vengeance a year in the making.

Mizzou has now turned Florida back to the light side, then let Florida die due to elemental exposure and/or electrocuted cyborg parts. Mizzou will celebrate this redemption by burning the power armor that’d long functioned as Florida’s living tomb. Florida’s ghost — adorned with either an old guy’s haircut or a young guy’s haircut, depending on which version you’re watching — will enjoy watching this ceremony, then return a few years later to explain its greatest achievement wasn’t actually undone during a Fortnite voiceover.

Things really were going pretty well for Mullen’s Florida like seven minutes ago. Ah well, at least he’s rich.

Condolences are in order for Mullen’s advocates, most of whom seem to have some sort of connection to a town called Athens, Georgia.

And, hey, remember that time Chip Kelly picked UCLA over Florida?

Alabama

Crimson Tide fans were again forced to endure the indignity of watching their team participate in a competitive game.

USC

The Trojans lost 62-33 to their cross-town rivals and are unlikely to make a bowl, but neither of these things can possibly hurt worse than:

 

Washington

The Huskies started the season ranked No. 20. They then lost to an FCS team, fired their head coach in a frenzy, and clinched a losing record against a really bad Colorado that accumulated all of 183 yards on the day.

Online, nobody’s all that furious about it (relatively), because nigh is the Apple Cup, the day when all feelings revert, flip, and pirouette, so why invest in any particular mood beforehand?

Wake Forest

Clemson beat the Demon Deacons. If you haven’t paid much attention to football for the last couple months, you’re wondering why this is big news. I guess it’s not.

Texas

Your weekly Bad Texas Stat:

This is great. This is really great for almost everyone. Look how much fun everyone is having, enjoying Texas being bad:

Broadcast cameras also found Horns Down hands at Oregon-Utah and Colorado State-Hawaii, perhaps among others. A few years ago, when Big 12 teams were getting in trouble for spreading the hand sign beyond Oklahoma, some Texas fans declared they enjoyed living rent-free in heads throughout the country. Good! Everybody’s happy!

Let’s check in on Dan Rather and Dril.

Michigan State

This occurred three days after the headline, “Michigan State working on historic 10-year, $95 million contract extension with football coach Mel Tucker.”

There were two teams in the top seven that kinda made everyone say, “Well, sure, they have to be there, I guess.” Michigan State was one, and the other was …

 

Oregon

In most computer ratings, the Ducks ranked in the teens or so, hanging their cute Nike sailor hats on what might end up being the season’s most baffling result, that alleged outcome in Columbus, Ohio. Utah took care of Oregon’s CFP ranking, 38-7, but also only made Ohio State’s loss look weirder.

As a person who’s prepped many a blog post ahead of time, I can confirm the following whoopsie (these things happen) very likely means the post was typed out and set aside way in advance. It was 28-0 at halftime, so sure.

On a positive note, Oregon can just go to a regular-person bowl game now, even if reaching the Rose Bowl itself requires wins over a pretty good Oregon State and … uh-oh … Utah.

THE MAIN CHARACTER, season-long lifetime achievement award: Nebraska

In and of itself, the Huskers’ last-minute disemboweller of a loss to rival Wisconsin would count as a difficult Saturday, if not particularly worthy of Main Character recognition. Nebraska, after all, is now 3-8, and nobody spends all that much time heaping national mockery onto teams with such records, unless they’re Texas. (It’s really fun, how bad Texas is.)

Except Nebraska does this every single week. And I dunno about you, but I was tired of mocking this poor team over a month ago. Nebraska has broken the Main Character’s capacity for hateration.

Their only loss by more than a touchdown was by nine points to freaking Ohio State. They nearly beat the teams currently ranked No. 2, No. 6, No. 10, No. 12, and No. 18 in the AP. Power ratings like SP+, Team Rankings, and FPI, all of which perform well against Vegas, consider Nebraska a top-35 team, better than some teams with 10 or even 11 wins.

It’s not even a joke. This is the best three-win team ever, at least since teams started playing schedules of more than, like, eight games. What a horrible thing to be.

This result had to cut as deep as any of the others, not only because of compounding despair, but because Nebraska should’ve gotten one last chance much closer to the goal line.

And now, things can either get even worse …

… or the Huskers can become quite arguably the greatest four-win team ever. Hold onto hope, if you got it.

 

Previously in THE MAIN CHARACTER

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