About 20 years ago, a friend of mine who had a lot more money than I did invited me and my then-partner on a trip through the Caribbean on his father’s private boat. It was the sort of indulgent voyage that I’m hesitant to even bring up in public, lest I be one of the first people taken out when the revolution comes, but suffice it to say, it was the sort of top-shelf vacation I haven’t taken since.
The thing about a trip like that is, even if it’s the only one you take in your entire life, it stops feeling like an aberration or an indulgence about halfway through. You can’t help but have the illusion that this is somehow normal. At one point, we were lying on some beach with sand so soft it felt like butter and I found myself getting restless. “Hey,” I said to my friend, “how long are we here today? What’s the next stop?” My friend smirked. “Oh, Will, I’m sorry, is this perfection not enough for you?” he said, crossing his arms in a mocking faux pout and then saying something that I still quote to this day:
“Hi, I’m Will. This paradise bores me. Bring me new paradise!”
The thing about being a sports fan is that you can never be truly satisfied. When your team wins something, it’s exciting, but only for a little while. Then you just want to do it again.
I moved to Athens, Ga., in 2013, and all I heard about was how desperate Bulldogs fans were for a championship. It had been since 1980 that Georgia had won a title. They’d watched rivals Florida, Auburn, Tennessee, Alabama, Clemson and even Georgia Tech all win in the interim, and proud Georgia fans vowed that their lives would not be complete until they reached the promised land. They were so famished for a title that they fired Mark Richt, a Hall of Fame coach who had won 10 games four of the previous five seasons, in case you think coaching carousel madness is somehow new.
In 2021, they finally got that title, thanks to Kirby Smart, the favorite son alum who replaced Richt. A year later, they won another. I would say this sated Georgia fans for … oh, about 11 months, until they lost to Alabama in the SEC Championship Game and missed the then-four-team Playoff entirely.
Now that they still haven’t won one since 2022, if they fall short again this year with what looks to be the best team in the SEC right now, people will be extremely frustrated. (Or at least find new ways to yell at offensive coordinator Mike Bobo, who has been a Georgia meme for so long now that “RUN THE DAMN BALL BOBO” hats are now nearly as old as multiple Georgia players — including Bobo’s son, Georgia’s starting center.)
Kirby Smart delivered Georgia its first national title in 41 years in January 2022. (Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)
Georgia’s title was supposed to be life-changing. But everyone’s lives are still pretty much the same. They just want more. And not just that: Even wonderful experiences from the past, when repeated, just can’t bring the same euphoria. There was a time when beating Florida in the Cocktail Party rivalry would be an unquestioned highlight of the year; now that Georgia has won eight of the past nine against the Gators, it’s hard to remember that winning that game is supposed to be a big deal. You just get used to all the winning. You can’t help but take it for granted.
You don’t even have to win a championship, or two of them, to feel this way. The goalposts are always getting moved.
I am a proud graduate of Illinois, which means I have watched a lot of terrible college football in my life. (Illinois lost the last 17 games of my time in college, and that was before Ron Zook and Tim Beckman.) The Illini, under coach Bret Bielema and athletic director Josh Whitman, have turned the program around; there’s a real chance Illinois will reach double-digit wins for the second straight season for the first time ever. But when Illinois beat Maryland 24-6 last Saturday for its seventh win (a figure the Illini have reached only eight times in the past 30 years), I didn’t see a single snap of it. Why? Because, with their loss to Washington last month, the Illini were effectively eliminated from the CFP chase, which meant the only thing that Maryland game really affected was bowl consideration.
I hope you’ll forgive me, but, sorry: I’m not gonna skip a Georgia-Texas tailgate to see a game that’s determining whether Illinois plays in the Pinstripe Bowl or the ReliaQuest Bowl. Is that lame? Probably: This is, after all, as good as Illinois football has ever been. But that’s the thing about winning: It just makes you want more.
Vin Scully once said that “losing feels worse than winning feels good,” a phenomenon sociologists call “loss aversion,” the highly relatable human sensation of wanting to avoid pain more than you want to experience joy. Winning, on the other hand, is addictive; it is downright habit-forming.
This is particularly true in the age of the expanded College Football Playoff, which could expand even further in future years. As more teams reach the Playoff, not only does it make missing the Playoff feel like some foundational failure (as witnessed by all these coaching firings), but it can’t help but lessen the euphoria of reaching the Playoff in the first place. Of the 12 teams that made the Playoff last year, the five who are likely to return this year (Ohio State, Georgia, Notre Dame, Indiana and Oregon) will come into the this year’s bracket expected to improve upon (or, in Ohio State’s case, and maybe Notre Dame’s, match) what they did last year, or this year will be a disappointment. Despite being, by definition, one of the best teams in the country. If Ohio State doesn’t repeat, I invite you to visit its fan message boards in the hours afterward. I suspect the prevailing ethos will not be, “Hey, they tried their best, you can’t win them all, wasn’t last year fun, let’s all hug.”
Expanding to 16 or 20 or 24 teams isn’t going to make more teams and fan bases happy; it’s just going to redefine what success and disappointment mean. It’s just going to be a whole new way to frustrate yourself.
Is there a solution? I’m not sure you can necessarily solve human nature: We are a spoiled species, forever absorbing and processing life-changing innovation so quickly that by the time we figure out how to use a new technological breakthrough, we’re annoyed that we can’t get it to work faster.
But I wonder if the way to think about it is to separate the expectation for your team from the lived experience of rooting for them. This Saturday is the closest thing college football has to an off weekend, the last week before Thanksgiving and the intensity of Rivalry Week. It’s the week when Texas A&M plays Samford, when Georgia plays Charlotte, when Alabama plays Eastern Illinois, when Ohio State plays Rutgers. There are some fun games — Oregon-USC, Georgia Tech-Pitt — but on the whole, this is a week when the CFP standings are unlikely to change much and the needle is unlikely to be moved.
But why are we so obsessed with moving that needle? Here in Athens, that game against Charlotte is going to be the final Georgia home game (barring a Playoff game) until next September, 10 months from now. That means Saturday could be the last time we’ll all get to tailgate, the last time we’ll all gather, either in the stands or at the bar or just in our living room, to watch a team we’ll obsess over the entire offseason. It’ll be the last time you see that senior you’ve watched for four seasons — or, ahem, that freshman you’ve watched for one — it’ll be the last time you hear the band play the fight song, it’ll be the last time you see that logo at midfield. (A buy game is generally underrated anyway: It’s relaxing, it’s no stress, the tickets are always cheaper and you don’t have to feel guilty if you leave early to beat traffic.)
Why does everything have to be a referendum on whether This Team Can Win It All? Can’t we just slow down and enjoy? This is sports! This is supposed to be fun!
But that’s the thing about fun: It’s fun only until we decide we want more, and we always, always want more. Joy is fleeting; only that vague dissatisfaction, that incessant yearning, is eternal. This paradise bores me. Bring me new paradise.
