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THE JOURNEY BEGAN, like so many frustrating and ultimately fruitless quests, with the 2019 Florida State Seminoles.
Florida State had opened that season by blowing a 31-13 lead to Boise State, and in the aftermath, offensive coordinator Kendal Briles pinned at least a portion of the blame on one of the most meaningless bits of jargon in coachspeak: Momentum. Florida State lost it, couldn’t get it back, and the football gods delivered the Seminoles a crushing defeat.
I wasn’t buying it.
“Momentum is not a real thing,” I tweeted, an unassailable statement of fact I was sure others would accept, too.
Instead, here’s a sample of the responses:
“Momentum is definitely a real thing in football!!!”
“It appears you’re not that bright.”
“Trash take. … Delete your account.”
From there, convincing the world that momentum is an illusion became my personal crusade. It’s a fight I’m losing badly.
As we dive deeper into the 2021 bowl season, there will undoubtedly be an endless chorus of pundits suggesting a big win generates momentum for 2022 (a theory Texas disproves annually). During games, momentum will be up for grabs, swing wildly, be a little in one team’s favor or all in another’s. It’s the most overused term in sports, as former Los Angeles Times sports editor Bill Shirley noted in a column way back in 1985, yet momentum’s presence is so ubiquitous that not only will the announcers, coaches and players acknowledge it but a casual fan sitting on the couch will feel it, too.
This is why disproving momentum is so difficult. Ask 100 people to define it and you’ll likely get 100 different answers, but absolutely everyone who has spent any time around sports innately understands the sensation. Show people…
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Source : espn
