A Salute to the Winners
Let’s get this week’s Broken Coverage started with a song dedication.
Undefeated teams lost in Week 10, and other Playoff hopefuls had their hands full in near-misses sure to throw the postseason outlook into disarray, and yeah yeah, that’s all well and good.
But the real lead story from Week 10? Six previously winless programs scored their first victories of the season. For two teams, Saturday marked their first wins in years.
Snapping a long losing streak can earn a team a place in college football history. Northwestern ending its half-decade of misery with a defeat of Northern Illinois in 1982 gets as much play any national championship from the ‘80s.
As losses piled up for Prairie View A&M in the 1990s, SportsCenter began covering the Panthers’ scores each week. I remember following PVAMU’s pursuit of victory through the ESPN flagship until the day in September 1998 when, after almost nine years, the Panthers did it.
Invoking momentum in this age of analytical thinking elicits eye rolls; while mass-in-motion is a scientific concept, the idea of momentum in sports is rooted in a certain mysticism. But I believe in momentum as a manifestation of psyche — and, to that end, a losing streak becomes a negative form of momentum the longer it goes.
Snowball effect.
The weight of such momentum takes a heavy emotional toll. Winning a single game might seem like a little thing, but sometimes the most joyous celebrations in a college football season come from those teams exorcising the demons of defeat.
ARIZONA
The longest losing streak in the nation landed Arizona the unfortunate historic designation of the lengthiest drought in Pac-12 history. To the credit of first-year coach Jedd Fisch, his staff, and above all the Arizona players, UA has never in 2021 looked like a team that quit.
And, really, the Wildcats could understandably have done so losing quarterbacks Gunner Cruz and Jordan McCloud to injury, then having Will Plummer’s status questionable ahead of Week 10.
UA’s effort gave it the look of a team ready to break through. The Wildcats took Washington and USC to one-score finals, and probably should have beat UW on Oct. 22. Circumstances for a Wildcat win were ripe — and that was before Friday’s news that Cal would be down several players due to COVID protocols.
Now, here’s where the Physical vs. Psychological comes into play: On the physical side, Arizona probably should1 have won based on Cal’s absences, most notable of which was quarterback Chase Garbers.
Psychologically, the weight of expectations can become an albatross. Arizona’s loss to Northern Arizona in Week 3, when UA surrendered a two-touchdown lead, reflected this. And had the Wildcats’ lost in Week 10, snide commentary like this would have been rampant.
All attention may have been on Cal’s absences, deservedly so. But UA played at quarterback a wide receiver and Plummer, who Fisch told Pac-12 Networks “had about eight different injuries.” The Wildcats also lost three offensive lineman over the course of the day.
It wasn’t a win without struggle. The ensuing field storming by the student section was well-earned — and no, I will not defer to the FiveThirtyEight’s metrics to determine the worthiness of a field rush2.
BETHUNE-COOKMAN
A topic of conversation I’ve heard among sports fans a few times over the years asks, would you rather lose continuous heartbreakers or be blown out?
That question applies far more to spectators than athletes, who will also choose to compete and at least give themselves the chance to win. Still, one can understand how putting up a fight every week only to fall short could eventually lead to mental exhaustion and future blowouts.
Bethune-Cookman opened 2021 giving what’s turned out to be a pretty good UTEP team a handful at the Sun Bowl. The Wildcats since lost games by three points to preseason SWAC favorite Alabama A&M; seven points to South Carolina State; and six points to each of Prairie View and Mississippi Valley State.
BCU continued to chip. Tight end Kemari Averett said after Saturday’s game that the Wildcats had “the best day of practice [they] had all year and” he “knew it would carry over to today."
Averett was prophetic. BCU didn’t just win while matching a season-high for points scored; the Wildcats beat a good Alcorn State team. The Braves came in 4-1 in the SWAC and still very much alive for the West division’s berth into the conference championship game.
BCU spoiled Alcorn State’s SWAC Championship aspirations, and did so rallying from a 31-21 deficit.
LEHIGH
Lehigh needed no comeback nor to sweat out any of its emphatic first win of 2021. The Mountain Hawks routed Bucknell, 38-6.
Putting up 38 points was remarkable in its own right, as Lehigh scored a total of nine points through Oct. 9. Zero touchdowns over that stretch, dropping games of 47-3 to Villanova; 31-3 to Richmond; 32-0 to Princeton; 30-3 to Colgate; 34-0 to Yale; and 20-0 to Penn.
Getting into the end zone five times is catharsis enough. Lehigh completing flipping the kind of score it had been on the wrong end of earlier this season deserves serious celebration.
MORGAN STATE
This one went down on Thursday, but Morgan State scored a win over Delaware State in MEAC play.
UALBANY
Among the best stories of the 2019 FCS season, UAlbany emerged from a one-win finish the year prior to advance to the Playoffs. The Great Danes even won a game in the postseason.
With running back Karl Mofor and quarterback Jeff Undercuffler back, I expected UAlbany to be a playoff team again. I went so far as to rank the Great Danes in the top 20 of my preseason FCS ballot.
Due to a combination of injuries, an especially tough early-season schedule, and some rotten bounces, UAlbany slipped to 0-8.
Mofor — who was one of my favorite players to watch in the ‘19 FCS season — played intent on making sure he didn’t end an outstanding career without a W.
UNLV
For a few hours Saturday following Arizona’s win over Cal, UNLV carried the nation’s longest losing streak and only drought of a double-digit number. Like Arizona, UNLV began the day having not won since the 2019 season.
The Rebels had been knocking on the door: Fresno State, Utah State and San Jose State were all one-possession games. Running over New Mexico as it did Saturday may not be wholly unexpected from UNLV, but it’s noteworthy all the same.
Rebels coach Marcus Arroyo’s postgame comments explain, bringing full circle the impact of psyche on a losing streak.
“[H]anging in there when things aren't going your way, it says a lot about your character as a team, as a program. It's so easy nowadays with the influences and outside pressures and the talk to quit. It's so easy for someone to say something and the guys to believe it, so it's a lot tougher to go back to work when things aren't going your way.”
HOUSTON BAPTIST
Houston Baptist fell short of its bid to score its first win of the season, 28-24 at Northwestern State. The Huskies rolled to a 17-0 lead, then retook the advantage with a little more than two minutes remaining, but it wasn’t enough.
HBU has two more opportunities to get in the win column, both at home. The Huskies close with Incarnate Word, the team to beat for the Southland Conference championship after knocking off Southeastern Louisiana in a shootout on Saturday.
Assuming UIW is too much of a mismatch for HBU, that leaves next week’s date with McNeese State. With all due respect to the Cowboys, I’ll be cheering for Houston Baptist.
The Huskies were leading Prairie View back in September and quarterback Blaise Bentsen was cooking with three touchdown passes. Then, a sudden brain bleeding required emergency surgery.
I am rooting for Blaise’s teammates to get that win, both for him and for their themselves.
According to me, not Las Vegas. Even after Cal’s COVID absences were announced, the Las Vegas line fell only from Cal -11.5 to Cal -8.5.
I just discovered the existence of this FiveThirtyEight metric today when one of the site’s staff was complaining that North Carolina fans took to the field after the Tar Heels…rallied from down 18 to beat undefeated and No. 9 Wake Forest. I swear, a disconcerting portion of people who comment on college football social media actually hate the sport.