It’s intended to jostle favorites back to reality and spur underdogs into attack mode. That’s why coaches call repeatedly on its words. They say it because it’s true:
“Any team can be beaten on any given day.”
Bert Bell, the legendary NFL Commissioner, coined the phrase. “On any given Sunday….” Is what Bell liked to say. But the assertion applies to all team sports, not just football. It may apply best to college basketball, especially in March. “That day” comes for many teams each year—and in a very big way.
The Big Lead.com
It happened again this year, multiple times, the primary reason why The Billion Dollar Bracket Contest ended soon after it began. But bracket-busting considerations aside, consider the dynamics associated with one particular type of upset: when “David,” a small college or local/regional university … an unknown … pummels “Goliath,” a nationally prominent school that everybody knows.
Mercer v. Duke: that’s what I’m talking about. So, when Mercer beats Duke, it’s a “Wow!” But it’s certainly not NCAA news. The David-beats-Goliath scenario happens in the tournament year after year. Examples: Georgetown v. Florida Gulf Coast, Michigan State v. Weber State, and Iowa State v. Hampton. David won each time.
Upsets are mostly ad hoc events, though. Take Northern Iowa. The Panthers (a 9-seed) shocked Kansas (a 1-seed) in the 2010 tournament, advancing to The Sweet Sixteen. But UNI has lost 59 games since then (no NCAA appearances). Kansas has won 123 times (in the tournament every year).
Courtesy: USA Today
Every once in a while, though, Goliath’s loss to David reveals something else: it signals the beginning of an unsettling downturn. Some of the best examples happen on the college gridiron.
Arkansas football was ranked #8 at the beginning of the 2012 season—21-5 over the previous two years—leading up to a game against Louisiana-Monroe in Little Rock. The game was supposed to be a tune-up for a run at the national crown. The visiting Warhawks had never beaten a ranked team and they were 3-34 all-time against SEC teams.
The Razorbacks lost the game, 34-31 in OT, and the defeat was followed by seven more losses that year. Bret Bielema was hired away from Wisconsin during the off-season to right the ship. But Bielema went 3-9 in his first year (2013), ending the year on a 9-game skid. So, in just a few seasons, the Hogs have gone from 21-5 (a national contender) to 7-17 (a regional also-ran). The slide began with UL-M.
Another example is Michigan. The date: September 1, 2007. The place: “The Big House,” Michigan Stadium. The opponent: the Appalachian State Mountaineers from Boone, NC, a lower-division program from The Southern Conference.
Courtesy: skylinepictures.com
#5-ranked Michigan lost the game, 34-32. The game went down to the wire. U of M’s attempt at the winning field goal was blocked, returned deep into Wolverine territory. Game over. Slide begins.
The Wolverines haven’t won a Big Ten division championship or a league championship since. Michigan has had three head coaches since 2007. They’ve suffered two losing seasons during the last five years. The record since 2007 against Big Ten rivals is 1-6 against Ohio State and 2-5 v. Michigan State (3-11 overall with a lone bright spot against rival Notre Dame, 5-2). Except for one shining season (11-2 in 2011), the once-dominant Wolverines have played .500 ball (39-37) over 7 years. The bowl record is 2-3.
Michigan isn’t any team: it’s the winningest program in NCAA history, the only school to win over 900 games. The Wolverines have won more Big Ten Championships than any other conference team (42). And it has an all-time winning percentage of +.725. But today’s Wolverines aren’t “those” Wolverines. “That day” came for Michigan. The aftermath has been painful.
No matter what, though, the continuing advantage for schools like Michigan—as Goliath—is brand. Everybody knows Michigan, but relatively few know Appalachian State. So it takes our breath away when “it” happens: when nobody from nowhere beats somebody from somewhere. But games aren’t played using academic rankings, endowment balances, and measures of faculty prestige. National prominence doesn’t count. Instead, the games are contested by players who aren’t always that far apart, if at all, in talent, aspiration, and motivation.
Still, though, it’s difficult to minimize the value of the school name printed on the jersey. That’s why the Wall Street Journal’s NCAA Tournament “Blindfold Bracket” contest is so intriguing http://projects.wsj.com/blindfold-brackets-2014/ No teams are identified by name. You’re given evaluative information instead, things like conference profile, quality of defense, and 3-point shooting accuracy. With that background you pick the winner of every NCAA tournament game.
Courtesy: WSJ
The fun comes where you compare the blind results against the bracket you’ve picked knowing team identities. Often there’s a gap. My national champion (picked with team names) didn’t make it to the Finals via the blind bracket. Worse yet, my favorite team—which I had picked to make the Finals didn’t get that far—but my favorite team’s biggest (and hated) rival did. Yikes!
So what if we didn’t have team identifiers at Michigan Stadium that day in 2007? Would we have picked Michigan to win?
Blind competition is functional because it creates a level playing field when it doesn’t exist otherwise. Consider the incredible (and true) story featured in the Hollywood film, “Bottle Shock” (2008). It’s about the international emergence of California wine.
Through the mid-‘70s French wine dominated the world scene, the gold standard in wine quality. California wine, on the other hand, was considered by many to be low in quality, not worthy of international comparison.
Courtesy: reelfanatic.com
Warren Winiarski wanted to change that picture. Winiarski launched California-based Stag’s Leap’s Wine Cellars in 1970, set on producing world-class wine. By 1973 he thought he had a shot at achieving that goal, but he had no way of showing the world just how good it was—until 1976. “The Judgment of Paris” involved blind taste-testing of various wines, French- and U.S.-produced wines included. The judging team: French connoisseurs. The winner: Stag Leap’s 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon. “That day” came for French wine … and it changed the world.
“That day” comes again and again in literally all domains, often unpredictably but never unremarkably. Hot turns cold. Something comes out of nowhere. Invincibility turns into vulnerability. New actors stand in the spotlight. Others step aside. Sometimes it lasts for just a bit of time. Sometimes it brings long-term change. It’s all part of life.
In sport we get to experience all of that—full bore and with plenty of emotion—especially in March. We know it’s not a matter of whether, only a matter of when, “that day” will come again.
Who’ll be next?
