College Football’s Dusty Finishers

Ric Flair famously said “to be The Man, You’ve Gotta beat the man.” While this axiom holds generally true in professional wrestling, there are some who beat the man only to have their titles stripped immediately after the match by disqualification or technicalities. This ending is known as the “Dusty Finish” named for the American Dream Dusty Rhodes who used this story line often as a promoter.

Beating the man without the hardware to show for it is the definition of Hard Times.

College football games, we’re told, are important. Every game is a playoff . . . unless, it isn’t. In the BCS/Playoff era, ninety-eight programs have played a combined 273 games against teams that won a national title…