Georgia and BYU: Two teams who are currently 1 - 4; two teams who over the past 10 years have been consistent and even dominant in their conferences; two teams with a respectable fan base and following; two teams with OK pre-season rankings and high expectations from their O-lines; two teams who happen to be the two primary teams I follow; two teams who are now looking for answers, hoping for a win, and struggling to keep the fans happy. Yet we still watch...and wonder why we do.
At some point, the game (or the season in these cases) becomes like a bad movie and you just want to walk away....or even run away. Most people will stick with a bad movie thinking it can only get better (or thinking about the ticket price we paid). But my experience has shown that when a movie is really bad...it usually stays that way and simply turns into a wasted 90 minutes. The Georgia and BYU movies are approaching that point, I'm afraid.
But college football is different. We rarely walk out or sell the remaining season tickets. We keep looking for the good even when the bad is the primary topic on Monday mornings. Is it because we've already paid for the tickets? Is it because we think they'll turn it around at half-time or going into the 4th quarter or the last half of the season? Is it that we've seen so many football miracles we're afraid we'll miss one if we give up on the team? Is it because we actually have sat through bad movies that turned out OK?
No to all of the above. We watch because we're fans. Not fair-weather fans but fans with hope. Fans with understanding. Fans that cheer the good and deep down we understand the bad. Fans with a love of the game. But beyond the Saturday night ranting, the Sunday morning gasp at the stats, the Monday-morning quarterbacking and then the lunch-time tirade on the coaches...we still go back on Saturday. We watch because they need us and we need them. We watch because we love the game, even more than the wins. And because if we didn't watch we could not call ourselves fans.
Hang in there Dawg and Coug fans...