THE MAIN CHARACTER, Week 3: Actually, the 4-team playoff is plenty

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.

Playoff contenders who looked quite beatable

  • Purdue outgained No. 12 Notre Dame in a game with a one-score margin until the final six minutes.
  • Auburn was 26 yards and a two-pointer away from taking No. 10 Penn State to overtime.
  • No. 9 Ohio State led Tulsa by just a touchdown until three minutes remained.
  • Indiana led No. 8 Cincinnati with 13 minutes to go, then fumbled away a chance to retake the lead.
  • Georgia Tech was an end-zone bounce away from quite possibly forcing OT against No. 6 Clemson.
  • Entering the fourth quarter, No. 3 Oklahoma briefly led Nebraska by only five (very briefly).
  • Florida was a two-point conversion away from tying up No. 1 Alabama in the final minutes.

Each of these teams caught hours of mockery and derision, though it mostly petered out as final scores rolled in. Fans then wallowed in the misery of, like, defeating Tulsa by only 21 points.

Actually, the best way to understand the college football brain is this: Fans of the defending champ, currently enjoying the most ridiculous dynasty in the sport’s national history, have responded to a road win over the No. 11 team by grumbling about their defense.

So, in light of yet another Bama player confirming Nick Saban’s love of high school humor (which is probably why the Tide recruit high schoolers so well), I tried to stir up a little banter …

… but was soon crushed by the real thing.

Since almost every team is bad, it’s time for a dance break in honor of the two teams who are good.

The ACC

Clemson escaping the Yellow Jackets preserved the conference’s title hopes, I guess.

Other than that, West Virginia beat the ACC’s Virginia Tech for the first time since 2003, then joined the Sassy Victory Meme wave. I hope the Hokies return to the top 20 soon and then suffer another upset loss, because this Exit Sandman meme left a lot on the table. Doesn’t have much to do with waking up, for one thing. Almost appears to be taking the sand part literally.

The ACC’s Pitt did Pitt things.

And the ACC’s Miami continues to suffer the consequences of having 2017’s most viral college football thing, the Turnover Chain.

We are in SEASON FIVE of other teams having a great time mocking that thing after beating the Canes. Look how long ago this was:

Miami should’ve sold the chain while its value was still high.

 

Florida State in particular

The Noles deserve special recognition for being worse than anyone under the age of 50 ever thought possible.

If 0-3 becomes 0-4, this will officially be FSU’s worst start since 1974, before Bobby Bowden took over.

And Mike Norvell is 3-9 as FSU’s head coach. The previous guy, Willie Taggart, was fired after going 9-12. Just to equal that apparently firing-worthy mark, Norvell will have to beat six of the following opponents: Louisville, Syracuse, North Carolina on the road, UMass, Clemson on the road, NC State, Miami, Boston College on the road, and Florida on the road. I’ll give you UMass. What else?

 

The actual worst teams

There’s a lot of really bad FBS teams this year. Akron, Arizona, Bowling Green, New Mexico State, Ohio, Rice, ULM, and UNLV can present cases for the title of worst in the country.

But one or two other teams are below and beneath even those efforts.

Saturday, the Huskies dug to this new depth by posting a 42-0 deficit in the second half against a mediocre Army.

 

But there is another. As of this writing, a consensus of rankings has determined there’s a team even worse than the team rated by SP+ as the worst in FBS history: UMass.

It gets even worse. On October 9, UConn will travel to UMass unless a grownup steps in.

SEC refs

On a day when most other power conferences looked bad, the SEC could’ve just laid low and enjoyed having three of its teams in the day’s two biggest games.

Instead!

The thing about watching college football is that, every single week, you see something you never really imagined before. Did you know a punt could be incompletely downed? Has the thought ever even crossed your mind before?

Mississippi State ended up losing because of that 95-yard punt return touchdown. The SEC explained the result was kinda correct, but only because an incorrect signal during the play had been ignored, and because nobody noticed Memphis having two players with the same jersey number on the field.

The Bulldogs were unhappy, but they’re the ones who agreed to go to the Liberty Bowl in the first place. Memphis is for fun, not rules. The only real consequences of this outcome might be MSU missing a bowl game, which probably wouldn’t have been any more glorious than the one that happens in the Liberty Bowl. See? Now you don’t gotta go back.

More consequential? Almost, at least? That’d be Penn State being totally robbed of a down against Auburn.

The SEC was again to blame. Consider it a make-good for the call that gave Memphis an SEC victory!

Elsewhere in SEC management, Florida’s stadium clock stopped working with three minutes left.

And I gotta be honest, I don’t even know what this is about …

… but I wanna pretend it’s a conspiracy theory that the SEC’s Birmingham office is in cahoots with Time Variance Authority.

THE MAIN CHARACTER: The Pac-12

It takes a lot for a Saturday to register as an especially bad Saturday for the Pac-12. One reason: Most Saturdays are bad for the Pac-12. The other reason: Most Pac-12 Saturdays don’t register at all.

Well, No. 13 UCLA lost to Fresno State, whose quarterback was playing with about 1,000 broken bones and exclaimed after the game, “We tried to give them every chance to win!”

And No. 19 Arizona State put on scary black uniforms to crash BYU’s white-out, but lived its gimmick a little too much, particularly when the officials were looking. ASU lost by 10.

Utah did a stupid thing, agreeing to play San Diego State, an alleged non-power that nevertheless constantly beats Pac-12 teams.

Colorado released a fake depth chart, then accidentally fielded it.

And Arizona is about as bad as a power-conference team can possibly be.

At this point, the conference’s claim to 2021 fame is Oregon looking a bit better against Ohio State than Tulsa did (except Tulsa’s yardage differential was better).

The Pac-12 supports playoff expansion, obviously, because the conference is rarely within hollering distance of the four-team field. But after getting one more look at this league, do you still support playoff expansion?

Tell you what. Introduce midseason promotion-and-relegation, push BYU to the big leagues a few years early, and we’ll call it even.

Previously in THE MAIN CHARACTER

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