Rooting disinterest

 I am what you might call an ecumenical college football fan.

By that I mean I love college football, but not necessarily specifically. I went to a MAC school (Ball State) that's occasionally good, sometimes really good, but mostly a shade of beige that blends in well with the autumn palette. Once in awhile the Cardinals will jump up and beat Indiana, but given Indiana's own gridiron history that's not exactly like summiting Everest.

Frankly it's more fun when the Cards tattoo Central Michigan, those schlubs from Mount Pleasant..

Anyway, when I watch college football, it's usually without a rooting interest. Upsets are especially pleasant, but one's no more pleasant than another. And I watch rivalry games as much for what has gone before as for what happens that day, history dork that I am.

However.

However, last night I did have a rooting interest. Or an anti-rooting interest, if you prefer.

I watched No. 5 LSU and No. 8 Florida State hoping to see both teams lose.

I wanted to see LSU lose because I wanted to see Brian Kelly lose. I wanted to see him lose because he's a big phony who denied his way out of South Bend right up until he left South Bend in a cloud of peeling rubber. Told his Notre Dame players (who came there to play for Notre Dame, but also for Brian Kelly) this, essentially: Hey, it's been great, but I'm outta here. Have a great life, because you know I will, seeing how LSU is paying me a hella wad.

Now, I'm not particularly a Notre Dame fan (again, that ecumenical thing). But the way Kelly dropped it like a hot rock as soon as LSU batted its eyes at him rubbed me the wrong way.

And Florida State?

I wanted the Seminoles to crash and burn because of the way they flapped their gums this summer about how they'd gotten too big for their sad little conference. They hadn't done squadoosh in six years, but last season they went 10-4 and suddenly they were swaggering around like Bobby Bowden was back from the dead and it was the 1990s again.

They needed a bigger wedge of the pie, FSU's president said, or the ACC could kiss 'em goodbye. They were, after all, Florida State. They were a brand. Clemson regularly pounded lumps on 'em and Notre Dame, too, a lot of years, but never mind that. They weren't the Seminoles.

You can see why I wanted to see the Seminoles get their arses handed to 'em, too.

Well, you know what happened. Brian Kelly and LSU went down like the Hindenburg, which was more than OK. But it was the Seminoles who torched 'em, 45-24, and that left me thinking "Oh, crap, now they're really gonna run their mouths."

In fairness, they looked damned good, and like all teams these days who look damned good the transfer portal has been kind to them. Jordan Travis threw for 342 yards and four scores, and 226 of those yards and three of those scores came from Keon Coleman and Johnny Wilson, who caught 16 balls between them. 

Coleman's a refugee from Michigan State. Wilson came to Tallahassee by way of Arizona State. So it goes.

And so it went last night, with the corresponding mix of emotion. Watching Kelly get trounced on national TV was all kinds of fun. Watching Florida State do the trouncing, not so much.

But you know what?

Give me a mix of emotion over no emotion any day.