Fan Misery Ladder 19.15: Championship Week Edition

Welcome back to the Fan Misery Ladder, where no one is champions in my book.

Actual misery is a little light this week, so let’s breeze through it and get on to more interesting discussion. You might think that playing in your conference championship game would make you happy. The only way you could possibly think this is that you’ve never met any college football fan ever. Those people are somehow even more pissed, and I for one am glad because I feed off their unreasonable expectations and disappointment.

Let’s take a look at the big board.

If you are unfamiliar with the rules you can find them here and here.

MISERY OF NOTE

THE PAC DELIVERS, REDUX It’s a miracle! The PAC saw our dark days ahead and blessed us with a championship week double drop. The haters and doubters refused to believe that Utah was legit and boy did the Utes show them that in fact they are not.

ALWAYS A BRIDESMAID 10 of the last 11 SEC champions were either Alabama, Auburn, or LSU. The other one was Georgia, who attempted a repeat of 2017 and failed by a measly 27 points. I mean, we’ve all taken off our team gear in anger, but...

LOOKING AHEAD

As a reminder, a lot of P5 teams are gonna lose to unranked G5 teams during bowl season. This sport is the best.

SINCE YOU ASKED...

Last week the commenters asked where things would be if we took off the restrictor plate and really let this bad boy hum. Well, in the spirit of whatever this is in the spirit of, I reran the season with no upper or lower bounds.

Let’s take a look at the much bigger board.

THEORETICAL MISERY OF NOTE

BIG GAINS Obviously a lot of Tier One teams were able to cut loose and fly free, but of particular note are Michigan and Minnesota, who were not in the top tier but moved up a LOT of levels compared with their caged counterparts. On the other hand...

THE BIGGEST LOSER As my friend Jimmy Gards likes to say, “let’s kick this pig in the dick.” Well, Arkansas sure took a shot to the gentleman sausage in this alternate reality. Still, they couldn’t hold a candle to the Scarlet standard of football despair. The Sixteenth Circle of hell is in New Jersey.

STAGNATION Also nice to see a number of teams in the middle tiers who did not move at all. Look at A&M and Texas holding hands while they ride the Titanic down. Listen, Jack and Rose didn’t end up together either, because she was a frigid bitch who wouldn’t share a door.

DO WE LIKE THIS? I don’t know. I mean, I live in this data and I find all of it interesting in some way. My concern is that this looks an awful lot like any taeky website’s bullshit Top 25. Let me know what y’all think in the comments, and let’s spend bowl season discussing how to improve the FML for next year.

FML 19.14: Rivalry Week
FML 19.13: Dead Inside
FML 19.12: This is Sparty
FML 19.11: Take Me Home
FML 19.10: S-E-C! S-E-C!
FML 19.9: Onward to Misery
FML 19.8: We Are The Aggies, The Aggies Are We
FML 19.7: Commodore Days and Scarlet Knights
FML 19.6: Shell Shock Jayhawk
FML 19.5: Ramblin’ Wrecks
FML 19.4: Not All Tears Are Blood
FML 19.3: This Means Something
FML 19.2: The Pac Delivers
FML 19.1: Rocky Bottom
FML 19.0: Preseason