THE MAIN CHARACTER, Week 9: Big brother is botching

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. Once again in this especially strange season, there were multiple valid candidates, along with some strong supporting players.

Florida

Nobody expected the Gators to beat No. 1 Georgia, but then again, nobody was prepared for how quickly all hope evaporated.

The #narrative after the game focused on the big (and growing) difference in talent between the two programs, which should pretty much always both rank around the top five of the recruiting rankings.

But over the last four years, Kirby Smart’s Dawgs rank No. 1 in average 247Sports Composite finish, while Dan Mullen’s Gators rank No. 10. If that disparity leads to a 34-7 final score in Jacksonville, imagine what happens if Georgia finishes with another No. 1 class and Florida falls even further behind. UF’s currently No. 6 in the SEC in average commit rating.

For now, the Gators are on pace for 7-5 or so, after starting at No. 13 in the AP.

Anyway, it’s Halloween.

 

Betting on Florida State

FSU-Clemson seemed certain to produce untold levels of angst, considering the new depths it was sure to reveal for one of these two proud programs. Instead, the bulk of the agony was suffered by neutrals.

FSU’s last-second attempt to score a miracle touchdown instead resulted in a TD for Clemson, giving us the rare double bad beat. Anyone who took FSU +9.5 points and the scoring under lost both their bets despite being correct for 59 minutes and 59 seconds.

 

Head coaches everybody was better without

On October 18, Washington State finally put an end to the Nick Rolovich debacle, firing the head coach who preferred Bill Gates conspiracy theories to making millions of dollars per year.

Within two games of the distraction’s exit, the Cougars had their best game in years, knocking off 5-2 Arizona State in Tempe.

And, earlier in the day, Bowling Green made some history as head coach Scot Loeffler became the first FBS coach to be ejected under a rule that’s been on the books since 2016.

Loeffler, whose claims to fame are knowing Tom Brady in college and preparing Tim Tebow to be an NFL quarterback, has been hired to run the offenses for five different FBS programs over the last decade or so. They have finished seasons ranked 68th, 101st, 106th, 114th, 100th, 126th, 104th, 102nd, 125th, and 91st in yards per play against FBS opponents.

So as soon as he was booted from Saturday’s game, an experiment was underway. How would the Falcons’ offense fare in the absence of such a consistent producer?

With dad away on vacation, the boys didn’t just cut loose in terms of yardage, they also ran amuck throughout the playbook for no obvious reason other than that they could.

Iowa

NEW RULE: Whenever the Hawkeyes are like 5-0 and yet to face most of the better teams on their schedule, we must wait a few more weeks before noticing Iowa’s yet to lose. After a loss to Wisconsin, they’ve now been outscored 51-14 in Big Ten West games, and it’s not like those games are especially horrifying.

For the 1,000th year in a row, most of Iowa’s struggles are to be blamed on the offense. And it’s becoming clearer and clearer (after it was already crystal clear to begin with) that the more Ferentzes you have on your coaching staff, the fewer points you’re going to score.

Most of the discourse following this game centers on Brian Ferentz, who would not be employed as OC by any FBS team other than his dad’s. His annual ranking in the same stat as Loeffler above: 103rd, 91st, 82nd, and 83rd, plus 123rd so far this year.

But I think the ultimate humiliation for the Hawkeyes is how superior Wisconsin is at Iowa’s own brand.

Ole Miss

You’d think the No. 10 team losing a semi-rivalry game would lead to widespread derision, but I mostly just found Auburn fans complaining about Ole Miss players reclining on the field between plays, Ole Miss fans complaining about refs, and neutrals complaining about Lane Kiffin attempting fourth-down conversions (the Rebels likely would’ve lost even if all three had been successful field goals instead).

The only thing everyone agreed on is that it’s bad when everyone agrees:

Pitt

The Pittsburgh Panthers are known for nothing other than upsetting better teams. What happens when Pitt itself is the better team, on pace to win the ACC and possibly make the freaking playoff?

Ah well. This is just the ACC Coastal reverting to its natural state.

Texas

We are now well into year eight of Horns fans worrying about whether the current coach is actually worse than his fired predecessor. Steve Sarkisian’s latest shortcoming: blowing a 21-10 lead against No. 16 Baylor.

The coach once nicknamed “Seven-Win Sark” due to his streak of decent Washington teams is likely to find that mark yet again, despite inheriting a team with a raw talent advantage over almost all its opponents.

It gets worse. After Sark was Bama’s emergency OC for the 2016 title game, the one when Clemson came back from a double-digit deficit, and then spent two years as OC for the Atlanta Falcons, who never met a gift they couldn’t squander, he’s continued these unfortunate habits in Austin.

I dunno, here’s a general grab bag section.

But hey, at least the Horns still have their railroad song!

Nebraska

After a third loss to Purdue in Scott Frost’s four years, there’s not much new to say about the Huskers. Think about how sad that is.

And speaking of things that are just as sad as they always are …

 

THE MAIN CHARACTER: Michigan

The Wolverines once again hit a season’s halfway mark as one of the country’s undoubted best teams so far. They then once again lost to one of their biggest rivals, with the even bigger and even better rival still on the schedule. I think Michigan should relocate to the Pac-12 South.

But this wasn’t the classic “Harbaugh loses a disgusting clunker to a less-talented Michigan State” of yore. This was a shootout in which the Wolverines outgained the Spartans by 157 yards, had more first downs, were better on third downs, had the far better passing game, and still found a way to lose, perhaps due to settling for four red-zone field goals.

As noted, it’s Halloween.

And one of this rivalry’s wrinkles is the way some Michigan people cannot seem to wrap their minds around being owned by Michigan State, as if they think they’re Michigan State’s Ohio State or something. In 2007, UM running back Mike Hart called MSU “little brother,” something he’s since regretted for at least six years now. This is multiple eras’ worth of ancient history, a span during which MSU is 10-4 against “big brother.” Jim Harbaugh, literally an IRL little brother, is now 3-4 in this series and 0-2 against Mel Tucker!

Did the Book of Genesis not teach us, over and over, that little brothers eventually win, so big brothers should behave? There’s a whole musical about this.

And yet, before kickoff, there was Wolverines alum Taylor Lewan breaking out “little brother” as if the year is 1901.

I think the Big Ten East Big Brother-ness rankings break down like this at the moment:

  1. Ohio State.
  2. Michigan State and Penn State are twins who bonk each other in the noggin with basement scrap.
  3. Michigan.
  4. Indiana.
  5. Maryland beat the Hoosiers on Saturday, but are still only 1-3 of late and 3-7 all-time against their big brothers. Also, the Terps suffer an additional Brother-ness demerit for being twins with Rutgers.

Speaking of Ohio State, the day went from bad to worse as the Buckeyes won their primetime game while literally dunking on Michigan State’s little brother.

And let’s part on this, the grimmest thing I saw all week: Harbaugh now being too lackluster and uninspiring for the Chicago Bears.

Previously in THE MAIN CHARACTER

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