The offseason is so long in college football, and the emotions run so high now, that people can barely get through it unless they talk themselves into best-case scenarios.

The lineman who needed to gain 10 pounds will instead pack on 20. The quarterback with questionable accuracy went to work with a private coach in California and is now firing darts. The playcalling will finally be more creative, the defense more aggressive. In college football, February through August is all puppies and rainbows before the reality sets in for most fan bases: About half the teams will get better from year to year and half will get worse.

That’s what makes the current predicament so dispiriting for Mississippi State fans. They were convinced — absolutely sure — that Dan Mullen’s decision to leave for Florida was going to be no big deal.

Joe Moorhead had come in from Penn State and won them over, even though the bar for new coaches to win fan bases over in the offseason is actually quite low. If a coach can manage to get through his initial news conference without drooling on the microphone or putting people to sleep, he will have “won” it. If he can manage to say some really nice things about both the fan base and the school that just spent millions of dollars to hire him, he’s a “home run hire.”

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Then for months and months, the diehards on the message boards and at the quarterback club lunches will tell themselves quite confidently that the previous coach’s quirks were holding them back and the new coach’s quirks are going to take them to the next level.

In the end, they’re easy marks. And nothing makes them realize it like the old coach coming back in Year 1 and comprehensively beating the new coach with a team that was supposed to be inferior.

Though Mississippi State fans may have had long-term fears that Mullen would unlock Florida’s potential long-term, Year 1 was supposed to reinforce a hope that perhaps they upgraded in the coaching department.

Well, nobody thinks that now after Mississippi State’s 13-6 loss to Florida that left the Bulldogs looking inept offensively for the second consecutive week. However you want to characterize the system Moorhead brought with him from Penn State, it has been comically dysfunctional in SEC play: 202 yards against Florida, 201 the previous week at Kentucky. And just like that, the fan base that fell in love with Moorhead at first sight now thinks he’s either in over his head and that he’s wasted the potential of a team that returned 18 starters after going 9-4 a year ago.

That quick reversal puts Mississippi State 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

Penn State: The always-fiery James Franklin went existential after blowing it for a second year in a row against Ohio State. In a 4½-minute screed to open his postgame news conference Saturday night after losing 27-26, a hoarse Franklin boiled the difference between the Nittany Lions and the Buckeyes not to any coaching mistakes or bad calls on his part (and there were plenty) but rather some intangible gap between the programs that can only be erased by things, like “going to class consistently, it’s getting to meetings on time, it’s having your phone turned off in the meetings … not settling for a B in class when you could have got an A.” Look, it’s not hard to see what Franklin is doing. Instead of wallowing in the pain of letting this slip away after controlling the game for so long, he’s trying to get his players to double down on their commitment and provide a pathway for them to believe they can win titles.

“We’ve gotten to a point where we are great and we’re comfortable with being great,” he said. “That’s the issue.” But part of breaking through is also strategy and making the right game management decisions in key situations. Franklin made enough bad ones to contribute more than his share in the Ohio State meltdown, from when he did and didn’t go for fourth downs and a final play call that made no sense. The idea those things don’t matter to results as much as whether you’re in class on time should strike anyone with half a brain as a pathetic attempt at spin.

Louisville: Is there a worse nightmare for this program than sinking to the bottom of the ACC while Kentucky, the in-state rival it could always laugh at, becomes America’s sweetheart? There’s only one person to blame for Louisville’s current predicament. Bobby Petrino stacked his coaching staff with relatives (a son and two son-in-laws) and trusted his defense to Brian VanGorder, which is historically a shaky proposition. As usual, his mediocre recruiting has left a roster bereft of the kind of talent needed to win in the ACC. What’s different now, though, is that Petrino’s playcalling is also failing him. His decision Saturday to call a first-down pass as Louisville was about to salt away a win over Florida State is an all-time mind-boggler. Instead of running clock, Juwon Pass tossed an interception that turned sure victory into a 28-24 loss. The heat on Petrino is ramping up in Louisville, and he deserves every bit of it.

Pittsburgh: Pat Narduzzi was hired for this job solely because of his bona fides as a defensive coordinator at Michigan State. So it’s not unreasonable for fans to have some expectation that the program would be built with that foundation. But here’s where Pitt has ranked in total defense under Narduzzi: 102nd currently, 69th in 2017, 100th in 2016 and 37th in 2015. That’s not a very good body of work for anyone, much less a coach with Narduzzi’s reputation. And it’s why the narrative around Pitt is about the new seven-year contract it gave Narduzzi rather than any real pressure to get out of the bottom tier of the ACC. Saturday’s 45-14 loss at UCF in which Pitt got outgained 568-272 was a good illustration of why fans feel so hopeless. It just doesn’t seem like much progress is being made.

UConn: Last week, coach Randy Edsall simply walked out of a news conference when he was asked about his philosophy on firing assistants in the middle of the season, a question purportedly prompted by Wake Forest changing defensive coordinators. Edsall has a history of this kind of thing when he’s upset at the media, but if anything, the question that set him off was pretty mild considering things he could be asked. UConn’s season has been a raging dumpster fire of folly, so bad that the Huskies would have to go down to the very bottom of the Football Bowl Subdivision to find a team they could actually beat. In four losses to FBS opponents, UConn has been beaten by margins of 39 (UCF), 55 (Boise State), 30 (Syracuse) and 42 (Cincinnati). Edsall had a lot to fix in his second go-round at UConn, but he should probably rethink things if his Pavlovian response to the idea of firing someone is to walk out of the room.

TRENDING TOWARD MISERY

Memphis: The Tigers were tabbed as favorites to repeat in the AAC’s Western division, but they've gotten off to a disastrous 0-2 start in conference with losses to Navy and Tulane, the latter by a shocking 40-24 margin. After years of ignoring bad football, expectations have been raised by the Justin Fuente and Mike Norvell regimes. Spoiled by such terrific quarterback play in recent years, the regression with Brady White — the Arizona State transfer handpicked by Norvell — has provided a stark glimpse into what life was like before Paxton Lynch and Riley Ferguson.

Nebraska: Thankfully for the Cornhuskers, the administration found a way to get Bethune-Cookman onto the schedule to replace the canceled opener against Akron. Otherwise, Scott Frost may very well be looking at a winless debut season. Yes, it’s officially that bad. Nebraska’s 42-28 loss to Purdue was the program’s eighth in a row going back to last season, and of the variety that suggests it can’t even beat other bad teams. Nebraska was basically blown out early (it trailed 27-7 early in the third), leading Frost to say Nebraska is “one of the most undisciplined teams in the country, and it kills me.” He was also critical of players dancing on the sideline during a kickoff while trailing by double figures. “We look like we love losing,” he said. The Huskers may keep losing for a while.

North Carolina: As it turned out, the win over Pitt was a mere blip on the radar pointing toward another awful season in the ACC. North Carolina returned to form in a 47-10 loss at Miami, a game that was defined by six Tar Heels turnovers and three defensive touchdowns by Miami. If Larry Fedora keeps his job, it will be more about a $14 million buyout that North Carolina would rather not pay than any sort of belief that there will be a course correction. It would be impossible to make that case at this point, as the Tar Heels are 2-10 in their last 12 ACC games. Plus, with basketball season starting in a few weeks, it would be pretty easy for athletics director Bubba Cunningham to calculate that his fan base’s attention will just move on if the football side ends up 3-9 or 2-10.

UCLA: Maybe Chip Kelly doesn’t really care, but having his team do those jumping jack circles on the sideline only makes things look more ridiculous for UCLA than what’s actually happening in the game. You could have given really, really long odds on the Bruins being 0-4 to start the Kelly era because the schedule did not look particularly daunting. But that’s exactly where we are after a 38-16 loss at Colorado. Kelly hasn’t gotten near as much first-year heat as Willie Taggart, for instance, but he probably deserves it.

Florida Atlantic: The Lane Train derailed Saturday night at Middle Tennessee. After taking a quick 21-3 lead, the Owls fell apart in the second half, managing just a field goal while turning it over three times (once on downs) and punting four times. That allowed Middle Tennessee to come back for a 25-24 win as quarterback Brent Stockstill made a clutch 2-point conversion throw with 38 seconds left. After Lane Kiffin rolled through C-USA unbeaten last season, his Owls (2-3) don’t look nearly as dominant this time around.

TOTALLY REAL AND IRRATIONAL MESSAGE BOARD THREADS

“I admit it — Moorhead has killed my eternal optimism” — elitedawgs.com (Mississippi State)

“Should Franklin be FIRED for that horrendous call ?!?” — lions247.com (Penn State)

“Why keep football?” — the-boneyard.com (UConn)

“So, Scott Frost regrets taking the Nebraska job” — huskeronline.com

“Hope for blowouts and bet the opponent” — panther-lair.com (Pitt)