Reality has intruded on the Penn State and Pitt football seasons. We can only hope for such a clear and decisive outcome on election day.
It strikes me on this Sunday morning, as I seek to utilize the extra hour that is the bonus of Daylight Savings Time being put in the closet, that there are similarities between the upcoming election and college football.
Begin with polls. Oh, the polls – often wrong but never in doubt.
There was a flood of new election polling over the weekend, often contradictory. Fans of each particular candidate predictably question the accuracy of polls not favoring their choice. It is similar with college football.
And polls, both in politics and college football, often are proved to have been overly optimistic in some cases; overly pessimistic in others. The good news is results will out, at least in football with the games played in public, as opposed to sometimes shady voting and counting done in secret during elections.
I wrote this past week of Penn State and Pitt each being unbeaten and ranked in the AP Top 25 based on that, but there were doubts about the pedigree of their results.
Penn State was 7-0 and ranked No. 3 before falling to once-beaten nemesis Ohio State, ranked No. 4. The Nittany Lions weren’t playing Kent State, Bowling Green or even over-rated USC this time. Despite being handed a 10-0 lead, Penn State managed to lose, 20-13, before a record home crowd that was, shall we say, not impressed.
No great escape. No miracle comeback. Only a post-Halloween haunting by a long-time, Michael Myers-like tormentor. Ohio State just beats Penn State in football. Period. As inevitable as today’s sunrise.
With the outcome yet again assured for the Buckeyes, some of those Penn State fans looked like Shillary supporters after they got the 2016 election results.
In some ways, the final score was misleading. Penn State was gifted its only touchdown on a badly thrown out pattern pass that was intercepted and returned for a touchdown early. Also, Ohio State’s quarterback later fumbled the ball through his offensive end zone from the two-yard line. Penn State got possession of the ball on a touchback instead of Ohio State likely scoring a touchdown.
This 14-point swing counterbalances Penn State whining about being stopped twice inside the five-yard line without scoring any points.
Pitt also had begun play at 7-0 Saturday, albeit ranked much lower at No. 18, and left at 7-1 after having absorbed a 48-25 thumping at the hands of No. 20 SMU. It was not as close as the final indicated, with SMU having led 31-3 at halftime.
Pitt had been behind often in previous games – sometimes big – and pulled out wins. Not this time.
Both Penn State and Pitt were unbeaten largely as products of less-than-challenging schedules. Yes, they both are in conferences and on that front are hostage to the schedules given them by those conference.
But either might have done a better job scheduling legitimate nonconference foes.
Penn State and Pitt should take note that once-beaten Boise State got that loss early in the season, losing on a game-ending field goal by Oregon. That Oregon team was No. 7 nationally at the time and now resides in the No. 1 spot.
Forget that oft-heard tripe about schedules being made well in advance and thereby giving teams a pass on lack of challenging opponents. They just couldn’t have known!
Oregon has been among the nation’s elite for a long time and was when it came together with Boise State as a scheduled opponent. But Kent State, appearing on the nonconference slates of Penn State and Pitt in this and many other years, never is to be mistaken for an elite program.
There are other common elements between elections and college football, including cult-like supporters totally incapable of rational thought, candidates and coaches ducking tough questions (Penn State’s coach James Franklin was Kamala-esque two weeks back in running away from media on the topic of former players charged with rape), and a lot of big money being thrown at candidates and programs behind the scenes.
As alluded to earlier in this post, the saving grace in college football is things tend to be settled in public. We get to see, on the field, how accurate those polls were.
That’s especially true in this year’s expanded national championship playoff field. With 12 teams getting a shot, it is going to be hard to argue that a worthy team was excluded. That often could not be said in the past, either when bowls and polls decided national champions, or playoff fields (picked by polls) were remarkably small.
Former football player, professional wrestler and current Fox political pundit Tyrus (George Murdoch) has been saying for weeks that tight political polls are incorrect and the election will not be close. He expects Donald Trump to win handily.
It would be best for this country if, despite all behind-the-scenes machinations, there was such a clear election winner, either way.
Don’t bet on it, just like you shouldn’t bet on Penn State or Pitt winning the national championship
Sam Ross Jr's site 