Part of the reason the Misery Index exists, in a sense, is to satirize the “fire the coach” culture that has become prevalent in college football. When you zoom out to 30,000 feet in this sport, what you see is schools paying huge amounts of money to coaches who are relatively unproven, a comprehensive campaign to build a cult of personality around the coach and then a fan base that brings out pitchforks at the first sign of trouble.

It's a little absurd.

At the same time, though, there are certain things that can't be excused and clear warning signs that become reliable indicators of failure. Sometimes, the panic isn’t ridiculous.

When you strip away all the stuff about tradition or what the Florida State brand represents or what fans think the program is supposed to be and just analyze the quality of football being played under Willie Taggart, there is no choice but to be concerned.

Florida State fans probably didn’t feel like celebrating much when Louisiana Monroe missed an extra point in overtime Saturday that gave the Seminoles a 45-44 win, and it’s hard to blame them.

This isn’t about being a three-touchdown favorite on this particular day and barely hanging on. That can happen. This is about a trajectory of performance that has been bad since Day 1 of the 2018 season, isn’t showing signs of improvement and nearly culminated with one of the most embarrassing losses in school history.

After watching FSU’s defense melt down against Boise State in the opener and then yield 31 points in the second half to Louisiana Monroe, there’s clearly something wrong. But it’s not just the defense. It’s offensive playcalling, formation issues, timeout usage — pretty basic stuff that’s adding up and being scrutinized by a very knowledgeable fan base that understood from the beginning that this was a bit of a rebuild after Jimbo Fisher started letting things slip.

But that doesn't mean Florida State fans should be okay with this, nor should they be satisfied by Taggart walking into his postgame news conference in a surprisingly chipper mood after what just happened Saturday.

“Our football team is still learning how to win and they found a way tonight to get a W,” Taggart said. “It wasn’t pretty, but our guys did find a way to get that W and we're going to celebrate that win for 24 hours and get back to work and get ready for Virginia.”

Here’s a question, though: What’s to celebrate? If Taggart is truly about building a championship-level program, it’s hard to see how that game is worthy of anything other than relief. Until that turns around, Florida State is worthy of being No. 1 in the Misery Index, a weekly measurement of knee-jerk reactions based on what each fan base just watched.

FOUR MORE IN MISERY

Washington: It’s completely legitimate to look at Chris Petersen’s tenure as a big success, having reached three consecutive New Year’s Six bowl games (including one Playoff berth) along with top-15 finishes. At the same time, the Huskies seem to carry around a whiff of fraudulence. They rarely beat anyone good and pretty consistently drop one or two games a year against pretty mediocre opponents while everyone acts as if it’s a shock. But at this point, it’s not a shock that Washington lost to California, 20-19, in a game that was delayed 2 1/2 hours due to severe weather. While the circumstances of the game were odd, the problem was predictable — the Huskies’ offense turned the ball over twice and settled for four field goals after long drives. For Washington, a team many people had pegged into this year’s Playoff, this one goes right alongside losses last season to Oregon and Cal (again) in which its offense just wasn’t good enough and 2017 when the Huskies removed themselves from Playoff contention with losses to unranked Arizona State and Stanford. Any top program can get caught on a given day, but the really elite programs don’t make it a trend. At Washington, it’s happened with regularity, so perhaps it's time to stop expecting the Huskies to get back into the Playoff.

Tennessee: If you have a Tennessee fan that you care about in your life, what do you even say at this point? No program in recent college football history has perfected the art of delivering unique gut punches to its fan base like the Vols, who followed the Week 1 loss to Georgia State by blowing a game to BYU that was practically impossible to lose. Even the most cynical Tennessee fan had to think this was over with 17 seconds left because the only thing that could beat them at that point with BYU stuck on its own 20-yard line and no timeouts was something crazy improbable. But with the Vols, the improbable is all too realistic — in the absolute worst way. Sure, it took multiple mistakes by Tennessee’s secondary to allow BYU to pull off a 64-yard pass play and a tying field goal, and certainly Jeremy Pruitt and his staff are going to work to correct those mistakes because that’s what coaches do. But fans look mostly at the big picture — and right now, after a 29-26 double overtime loss to BYU, there’s bad mojo at every turn and it builds on itself until either the dam breaks or something reverses it. The problem for Tennessee is that there was no reward for playing harder and better, and with a monster schedule, 0-2 could easily turn into 1-6.

Michigan: The special brand of haughtiness that surrounds Michigan football is rooted in the idea that the programs who win more are either cheating or accepting players that wouldn’t academically cut it at Michigan. This feeling of faux superiority has sustained the Wolverines’ fan base through a drought of outright conference championships dating to 2003 and unfavorable trends in its Big Ten rivalries with Ohio State (losses in 14 out of the last 15) and Michigan State (losses in eight of the last 11). But what happens to Michigan fans when their team might lose to a school that is tougher to get into and almost certainly isn’t cheating? They boo. And that’s what happened Saturday — several times — as the Wolverines struggled to a 24-21 double-overtime win over Army. Michigan is 2-0 so the season isn’t a disaster yet, but it’s a pretty unimpressive and quite fortunate 2-0 given that Army was at the 1-yard line with a chance to take a 21-7 lead halfway through the third quarter until a false start penalty and an interception turned things around. Even then, the Wolverines were lucky to survive some highly questionable down-and-distance decisions in the fourth quarter by Jim Harbaugh, who isn’t on the hot seat but whose decision to overhaul the offense this past offseason has yielded pedestrian results so far.

Arkansas: Do you remember the last time the Razorbacks won an SEC game? It was Oct. 28, 2017, and it was the only one they got that season. That led to the firing of Bret Bielema and the hiring of Chad Morris, but as much as Arkansas fans wanted a change at that time, how could they have predicted they’d still be waiting to see another SEC win? Arkansas is now 1-16 in the league over the last two-plus seasons and Saturday’s 31-17 loss at Ole Miss almost certainly portends more of the same this year. (Seriously, Arkansas’ most winnable SEC game is probably Mississippi State at home. It's brutal.) The good news for Arkansas is that Texas A&M transfer Nick Starkel looked like a competent quarterback, throwing for 201 yards on 17-of-24 completions and should solidify his status as the starter going forward. But that’s about all the positives that can be drawn from this game, in which Arkansas averaged just 2.3 yards per rush on 26 attempts. That's not going to cut it in the SEC.

TRENDING TOWARD MISERY

Nebraska: Huskers fans are going to have to hit the reset button on expectations for Scott Frost’s second year. That much is clear after a pretty lackluster opener against South Alabama and Saturday’s come-from-ahead, 34-31 overtime loss at Colorado. Much of the credit has to go to the Buffaloes here, who played a bold game and made key adjustments in the second half to erase a 17-0 deficit. But this kind of game did echo last season when Nebraska stumbled into a handful of losses in games they were positioned to win. The long-term outlook still seems good, but the big breakthrough might take a little longer than it seemed this summer.

Miami: Just a few short weeks ago, Miami fans were all in on the storyline of Manny Diaz — a local guy through and through, the son of the former mayor, the defensive coordinator who gets the Hurricanes’ program like nobody else gets it. Two games into the season, though, that’s all over. The grace period is gone. And that’s just how it is for Miami fans, who watched a potential win over Florida slip away followed by a 28-25 loss to North Carolina, which also has a first-year coach in Mack Brown and was far more incompetent last season than the Hurricanes.

Kansas: This fan base has seen enough pure incompetence over the last several years to excuse all kinds of losses. But 12-7 to Coastal Carolina at home in Les Miles’ second game? That’s not great. And it’s particularly troubling because — what do you know — a Miles-coached team appears to be incapable of throwing the football. Carter Stanley’s debut against Indiana State was solid enough, albeit unspectacular, in a 24-17 win. But his first FBS test of the season against the Chanticleers was a disaster: 13-for-19 for 107 yards and two interceptions. Kansas fans have no choice but to be patient as Miles overhauls the program, but it’s a rough team to watch right now.

Stanford: The Cardinal finished in the top-10 in four of David Shaw’s first five seasons. That steadiness earns you the benefit of the doubt in the preseason, but the Stanford of the last few years has been fairly underwhelming and is no longer one of the dominant smashmouth teams in the country. USC, an embattled program with a freshman quarterback, had little trouble with Stanford in a 45-20 win. Stanford generated a paltry 98 rushing yards against USC and 132 in their season opener against Northwestern. Are there no more Christian McCaffreys or Bryce Loves out there?

UCLA: Bleh. Everything about this experiment with Chip Kelly so far is just … bleh. Saturday’s 23-14 loss to San Diego State in front of a ton of empty seats at the Rose Bowl really wasn’t even worth a second glance. We know UCLA’s personnel isn’t great, but when you hire a supposed offensive genius to be your coach is it too much to ask for more than 261 yards (just 62 rushing) against a Group of Five team at home in Year 2?

TOTALLY REAL AND IRRATIONAL MESSAGE BOARD THREADS

“We can still win the east. Season has not even started. One more week of preseason” - volnation.com

“Would Petrino come be our OC?” - hogville.net

“I’d rather have the coach from Last Chance U than Willie Taggart.” - warchant.com

“Now can NU become Clemson or Alabama?” - huskeronline.com

“Urban Meyer out there unemployed” - canesinsight.com