By Jake Vest

Is it insane to look forward to being disappointed? 

Eight months ago the state of mind I was in could be described by the words in a John Prine song: “My spirit’s broke, my life’s a joke, and getting up’s real hard.”  

That was the night of the Tennessee-Ohio State football game, in which my Vols were humiliated, and I was left devastated, demolished, depressed and disgusted.  

It was about as bad as I can recall feeling. Then I spent 240-something days eagerly anticipating the chance to feel that way again. 

“Chance” probably isn’t the right word there – “certainty” would be more accurate. If you are a football fan, you are going to be humiliated, disgusted and demolished at some point.  The only question is when? 

Florida fans know what I am talking about. So do the fans of former No. 1 and allegedly unbeatable Arch Manning and the Texas Longhorns. Bama has already felt the pain this year.  

The Corps of Cadets at West Point can relate after a 30-27 loss to Tarleton State. That had to be Army’s worst surprise bloody nose since the First Cav helicoptered into Ia Drang, Vietnam, and failed to cover the spread.  (For details on that upset, check out “We Were Soldiers Once, And Young” … the book, not the movie.) 

You’d think winning would be the opposite of losing.  If one can make you totally unhappy, the other would make you totally happy. But that’s not really the case, is it? 

There’s always something to worry about even on the best of Saturdays. The pass defense has holes in it. The quarterback “isn’t sharp enough.” We’ve got to get that penalty situation cleared up. Somebody we’ll need next week got injured. 

Even if everything goes exactly right and there is nothing to complain about, you’ll hear that ultimate battle-cry of the pessimist: “We ain’t played nobody yet!” An Alabama fan still in mourning for his team’s loss to FSU told me this one. When your team beats Louisiana-Monroe 73-0, it’s like your kid passing a spelling test.  

In fact, in what has to be the biggest irony of all, it is the winning that makes the losing hurt so bad and makes life so stressful. The best and worst year of my life, depending on the day of the week, was 1998. We didn’t lose any games that year. Lots of happy Saturday nights and satisfied Sundays.  

Every Friday I was a nervous wreck.  

As the wins piled up, so did the mortal dread of what might happen next and whether this might be the week when it all falls apart.   

A football season is like cutting cards double or nothing over and over with the emotional stakes getting higher and higher and worrying about when the other guy is going to turn up an ace and end it all.  

That’s where I was when I wrote this on the Friday before the game – the same place  the Seminoles, Gators, Knights, Salukis, Bucky Badgers and millions of other fans were – with a substantial stack of emotional chips in the pot and wondering what is in the cards. 

By the time this prints, one of two things will already have happened.  

I will have enjoyed the equivalent of a Roman Triumph combined with a barn dance on nickel beer night. Or I will have attended a funeral in my head, watching hateful, happy dog-barking Georgia people kicking dirt into a muddy hole where they threw all my happiness. 

Either way, I will have gotten over it by Tuesday. Caring any longer than that would just be crazy.