No, I have now come to believe that the "No Expectations" theory doesn't quite resolve all the pain. Because, as jtstang acknowledges, you can have HOPE but still have "no expectations." The problem is that while I don't have any expectations of a win or a loss, I had hope that we would beat WSU. Those hopes got dashed, and it put a big poo poo diaper on my night even though I was at a game watching LSU clobber ULL.
Last season was actually the first season where I didn't even hold out hope after the first couple of losses. I would simply check the score on the internet. If we lost (which we always did as you know), I just shook my head, realizing exactly why so many people don't even care about SMU football anymore. But it did not affect my weekend.
This season I went to the home opener, as usual, and tried the "hope" thing again, as usual. I left the SFA game disappointed, as usual, b/c of the poor play. I decided to watch the UAB game more out of morbid curiousity. When SMU won, I regained the sense of hope...that maybe, just maybe, we could be inching in the right direction. The same ol' same ol' ALMOST occurred...but it didn't. We actually pulled it off before Lucy could pull the football.
Well, Lucy got her revenge on Saturday as SMU, as usual, found a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I'm not saying I have lost all hope for the season, yet; hey--we still have a winning record. But I do understand that the absolute, sure-fire immunity against disappointment is not to have EITHER expectations or hope. And I do understand why so many have chosen not to put themselves through the misery. I guess that's what separates SMU fans from SMU grads.
It's hard being an SMU fan.