As UCLA football fans stared with disbelief at the news that a
7-4 Bruin team had declined to play in the smurf-turfed
Humanitarian Bowl, you could hear a query from Dickson to
Maloney’s:
What the Hell Just Happened Here?
Yes, folks, the WTHJHH? phenomenon can strike anyone, anywhere,
anytime. Often accompanied by a bewildered look of incomprehension
(see cartoon), WTHJHH? plays no favorites. It has no friends.
And last season, it culminated in
“I-can’t-believe-we-lost-to
(expletive-used-in-adverb-form)
USC-again-and-aren’t-even-going-to-a-bowl-game”
fury.
Five weeks was all it took for WTHJHH? to dismantle a 6-0 record
and No. 4 national ranking into a lackluster 7-4, prompting fans to
ask for a kindergarten kickball-style “do-over.”
If you weren’t there for the self-combustible carnage,
consider yourself blessed. But to get the idea, imagine
you’re gliding toward your significant other, dozen roses in
your left hand and cubic zirconia (we are, after all, college
students) in your right.
As you fall to one knee and utter the words you had pored over
for days, she stops you.
Not only is she not interested in getting married, but
she’s not particularly interested in in seeing you ever
again. Talk about an all-time bad read on your part.
And then it sets in: “One minute, I was planning on
spending the rest of my life with this person, and now I need to
ask for my Third Eye Blind CD back. WTHJHH?”
But I digress. One of the harshest aspects of WTHJHH? is that it
can hit the haves and the have-nots with equal force. For just as
we all looked for answers when the Bruins mailed in a 27-0 loss to
USC, the kids up at Washington State were awfully happy with their
10-2 record, especially after the Cougs had been picked to finish
dead last in the conference.
That’s right, 10th. And where did they finish?
Second. As if turning down a majestic winter week in Boise
wasn’t deflating enough for UCLA fans, Washington freaking
State was looking down on them from one floor below the Pac-10
penthouse.
So you see, WTHJHH? is something of a double-edged sword. Its
powers can turn kings into jesters, but it can also do the
opposite.
This could be great news.
The self-destruction, NCAA peccadilloes, arrests, et cetera of
2001 left such bitterness in the mouths of journalists that the
Bruins were picked to finish sixth in the Pac-10.
Expectations haven’t bottomed out, but they’re
definitely somewhere near the inner core, boiling in igneous
magma.
Common sense would dictate that these writers are on to
something. But the Pac-10 is a lot like an argument with that
significant other that trampled your heart 47 lines ago.
Common sense doesn’t seem to prevail. In fact, it sounds a
lot like Mike Tyson critiquing Keynesian economic theory.
So mark my words (he declares as if he is Lee Corso talking
about Florida State on a Saturday morning): a team picked lower
than fourth in the Pac-10 will put together a run for the Rose
Bowl. It might not make it all the way, but it will trigger WTHJHH?
somewhere.
In 1993, UCLA was picked sixth and won it. The next year Oregon
was tabbed eighth and won it. Three years ago, Stanford was eighth
and ended up in first.
In the Pac-10, WTHJHH? has become one of life’s truths,
like how your dad will always be diametrically worse than you at
high-fives.
Looking at the conference schedule, it shows only one truly
vicious road game, at Washington Nov. 2. Otherwise (and I am
obviously the first sportswriter ever to say this) anything can
happen.
Though his approval rating might be somewhere near that of a
Latin American dictator, Cory Paus is still one of the best passers
in the Pac-10 when he’s healthy. He’ll have four of
five starters on the offensive line back to make sure he stays that
way.
The receiving corps and secondary are as good as it gets in the
conference. But most of all, no clear-cut hegemon exists this year.
While it would be surprising if Wazzu finished fifth or sixth, or
if UCLA ended up in first, it wouldn’t be shocking.
So I suppose the lesson to be learned from WTHJHH? is never get
too high (first time you heard that in a college paper, eh?) or too
low.
A 6-0 start isn’t a guarantee of anything. Beginning the
year out of the Top 25 isn’t either.
WTHJHH? could strike in either instance, and silly as it may
sound this season, Pac-10 history dictates that UCLA fans
can’t rule out the possibility of asking a follow up
question: CYSTR?
As in, Can You Smell the Roses?