Some people have all the luck. Exempli gratia: Last week, my mom - who still calls the Chicago Blackhawks' captain "Jonathan Toes" - got to touch the Stanley Cup. This weekend, my brother will be sitting in the Penn State student section when Joe Paterno wins his 400th college football game. And right now, while I'm hunched over my desk, dutifully cranking out another column, my buddies are downstairs playing enough Super Smash Bros. to send lesser men into a seizure. But before this weekend, no one was luckier than my cousin.
My cousin is a freshman at Michigan State, and while his college choice turned more than a few heads in a family of Penn Staters, it looked like a masterstroke of college application. I have spent much of this semester seeing green for Sparty. During just a few months of college, my cousin was poised to experience more collegiate sports success than I probably ever would in my time at U.Va. Last week, the 8-0 Spartans ranked No. 5 in the BCS and AP top-25 football polls, and MSU appeared destined for a Big Ten Conference Championship and BCS bowl berth. Meanwhile, Virginia pummeled FBS punching bag Eastern Michigan for its first 'real' win of the season, but only the most delusional Wahoo fans dared discuss the possibility of a winning record and bowl game. In basketball, the Spartans rank No. 2 in preseason polls and should be a lock for their 14th consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance with coach Tom Izzo, if not a repeat performance of last year's Final Four run. As in football, the Virginia men's basketball team will have a long road of rebuilding ahead after being picked to finish 11th in the ACC. Even Virginia's much-ballyhooed men's soccer team already seems to have lost the magic of last year's national title. Throw in the fact that Michigan State's strapping mascot, Sparty, has won numerous NCAA Best and Buffest Mascot competitions - Cavman is more likely to win Best Pedo-stache - and the verdict seems clear.
My cousin and I talk and text a lot, so he has been giving me grief about the Spartans' sports superiority ever since MSU's heart-stopping overtime victory against Notre Dame in mid-September. Most of his textual insults are unfit for print - suffice it to say that they routinely involve Sparty, a spear and Cavman's rear - and I rarely have a good comeback. I've tried to argue that coach Mike London wouldn't have almost croaked if that fake-punt against USC had led to a Cavalier win for the ages, but the bogus penalty on the play made my point moot. We don't live in a world of counterfactuals. Thankfully, I didn't need one Halloween weekend, as Virginia held on for a dramatic 24-19 knockout of Miami quarterback Jacory Harris and the No. 22 Hurricanes, while the Spartans were finally vanquished 37-6 by No. 18 Iowa.
I did not attend the 2008 home game against North Carolina, so rushing the field at Scott Stadium Saturday quickly became my favorite moment as a Virginia football fan - even if it did violate Rick Reilly's rules. Furthermore, it reminded me that Virginia, at 4-4, can still make a bowl game if it wins three of its last four ACC matchups. I hate to rehash my argument from an earlier column, but given how winnable the games at Boston College and Duke appear, it's a crying shame that a 6-6 debut season for London would not be enough to go bowling because two of those wins came against FCS schools. Finally, the win against the 'Canes taught me that no matter how good or bad things are going for your team, there is never any excuse to stop cheering them on - or worse, to wish you were cheering for someone else.
Tom Petty sings, "Even the losers keep a little bit of pride, they get lucky sometimes." During the last few weeks, Petty's lyrics have seemingly been spot-on in several corners of the sporting world, where the seemingly impossible has happened. The top-ranked college football team lost its next game for three consecutive weeks; the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies both bowed out of the MLB Playoffs prematurely; Virginia won its first ACC football game, and now people - me - are talking bowl games? Halloween makes people say strange things, but I promise this isn't the super-sized bag of candy corn talking. Plus, luck has had a lot less to do with it than Petty would have us believe. Today, top-tier college football programs can rise and fall faster than a Cliff Lee curveball. Michigan State hasn't won a Big Ten title since 1990 and wasn't highly regarded entering this season, but even after the Iowa loss, the Spartans still have a great shot to claim at least a share of the conference crown and accept the school's first BCS bowl bid. Similarly, U.Va. hasn't won an ACC title since 1995, and while a Sparty-sized reversal of fortune still looks a long way off, Cav fans should have renewed faith that Virginia is trending back in the right direction. The Cavaliers likely won't be lucky enough to face Duke's backup quarterbacks for most of next week's matchup, so here's to hoping they play with last week's pride and give London a refill on his first, sweet taste of ACC success.
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