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September 16, 2005 > Sports > UCLA loss evokes high school memories

UCLA loss evokes high school memories

By Stephen Whitfield | Thresher Editorial Staff

Here’s a little quirk of high school football you may not remember while attending Rice: Most schools really do not like to lose homecoming football games. School spirit is at a high point. The stadium is packed with current and former students and a big buildup leads to the announcement of the king and queen at halftime.

I despised the pageantry, but even I have to admit — homecoming games were a sight to see. Schools will do anything in their power to make sure their team wins so all their alumni can go home pleased. The best way they can ensure a favorable result is by scheduling the homecoming game against the weakest cream puff in the district, the team that never has a shot at anything. My high school’s football team was one of those cream puffs.

I went to two high schools and watched some pretty bad teams play, but nothing compares to my sophomore year. I played in the marching band, which meant I had to travel to every single football game, only to watch my team lose every game. And we wouldn’t just lose. We would get the living daylights beat out of us. These were the types of games where you see scoring records broken and third-stringers playing in the first half. During that season, I think we played about five or six other schools’ homecomings. Keep in mind high school football seasons last about 10 games.

Rice’s humiliating defeat at UCLA in its season opener reminded me a lot of those high school games. The game was tied at seven early in the first quarter, but we never really had a chance against the Bruins, a team that put up 299 yards of total offense and 21 points in the first quarter alone. I did not check on the game until late in the second quarter, and by then UCLA was leading 42-7.

Honestly, my immediate reaction upon finding out the score was not one of anger, despair or even shock. I just accepted it. I have become desensitized to gridiron futility after witnessing so much of it over the last five-plus years.

And that’s not OK. The most upsetting part about the UCLA game was neither the fact that we were blown out nor the possibility of the score being a harbinger of things to come. As bad as the score may seem, it was still against a non-conference opponent. We were never in the hunt for a national championship, so margin of victory and non-conference losses are not important over the course of the season. Plus, we run a spread offense with option personnel and returned almost all the starters from a defensive unit that gave up nearly five touchdowns per game last season. Anyone who does not see a long season coming is either an extremely hard-core fan or is just deluded. No, the most upsetting part about the loss was the complete lack of reaction from me and all the other Rice fans on campus. It’s the same response that sophomore-year high school team got after any embarrassing loss: none at all.

I did not come to Rice expecting a school with a top-notch football program — other schools I could have attended offered more successful teams. I also know Rice has been able to post teams with at least five-win seasons in six of the past eight years; the team is not a total joke. We even went 8-4 just four years ago. Sometimes, though, you’d think we haven’t won a game in 40 years. If a football program or any athletic team is so bad that a 42-point loss generates no response from the general fan base, then what’s the point of even having one?

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