Kansas State's no-good, very bad start to the 2025 college football season managed to get even worse on Friday night. A team that most had pegged as Big 12 frontrunners entering the year now sits at a shocking 1-3 after a 23-17 loss to Arizona, one that raised even more questions about just where this usually rugged defense has gone and whether former blue-chip QB Avery Johnson will ever live up to his considerable hype.
But what if Johnson, or the loss of several key contributors from last year's squad, isn't to blame after all? What if this Wildcats season was doomed from the moment their schedule was finalized? That's the theory going around, at least: For the third straight year, a team that began its season with a loss in Ireland has spiraled upon returning to the States, leading some to wonder whether there's something in the water over there that's hard to recover from.
If that sounds like ridiculous post-hoc superstition, well ... that's because it should. Sure, it might sound nice on the surface — the compressed travel schedule, the body clock confusion, how it throws off the rhythm of preparation for the next week — but the reality is that Ireland isn't what's wrong with 2025 Kansas State, or 2024 Florida State, or 2022 Nebraska. Their problems had nothing to do with location and everything to do with what happened on the field.
No, there's no such thing as an Ireland curse
Let's make one thing very clear: There's hardly any evidence to support any sort of post-Ireland hangover. The first FBS game played on the Emerald Isle in the 21st century came back in 2012, when Notre Dame romped to a 50-10 win over Navy. The Irish went on to reach the national championship game that season; Navy rebounded just fine, going 8-5 with QB Keenan Reynolds at the helm.
The same holds true for the rest of the 2010s. The 2014 game, in which Penn State topped UCF for its first win under new head coach James Franklin, saw the Knights go on to finish 9-4 and earn a share of the AAC title. The 2016 game? Georgia Tech edged Boston College, 17-14, but BC would go on to make a bowl game that season — hardly a disastrous result for a mid-tier ACC program.
Really, the only thing we're talking about when we talk about a supposed Ireland curse are the three games since the COVID-19 pandemic. And sure, it's true that the losers of those games have gone on to spectacularly bad years far below preseason expectations. But maybe, just maybe, it's our expectations that were out of line.
Maybe Scott Frost was just a disaster at Nebraska
This one should hardly need much explanation. Frost already looked dead in the water prior to the Huskers' nightmare loss to Northwestern in Ireland to kick off the 2022 season: He'd gone 4-8, 5-7, 3-5 and 3-9 over his first four years in Lincoln. Sure, better things were expected in year five, but ... well, Nebraska has made a habit of creating offseason hype that turns out to have been wildly misplaced.
The reality is that this wasn't a very good team because Nebraska wasn't a very good program, adrift with a head coach who was clearly in over his head. Even if the Huskers had managed to flip that season-opening result and started 1-0, does anyone really believe that Frost would've even managed to get to a bowl game, much less restore Nebraska to national prominence? Heck, Huskers fans should be grateful: The loss on a national stage allowed their administration to finally pull the plug, and the hiring of Matt Rhule seems to be going just fine right now.
Maybe Navy was rebuilding with a first-year head coach
Navy got shellacked by Notre Dame in Ireland to start the 2023 season, and on the surface, a 5-7 finish would seem to support the idea of a Dublin effect. But that 5-7 record was actually an improvement over the year prior, in which the Midshipmen went 4-8 in Ken Niumatololo's final season in charge.
That 2023 loss to the Irish also happened to be Brian Newberry's first game, not just as the head coach at Navy but as a head coach at the FBS level. Put in that context, a blowout loss to a national power hardly seems out of line; this is what's supposed to happen in game one under new leadership. If anything, the fact that Navy went on to contend for a bowl game feels like evidence against the Ireland game derailing your season.
Maybe DJ Uiagalelei and Avery Johnson were going pro in something other than sports
Sure, no one could've seen Florida State's 2-10 collapse last season coming. But ... maybe we should have? Oregon State coaxed a functional season out of DJ Uiagalelei in 2023, but that was in a very controlled environment, and Clemson fans knew all too well what could happen if you tried to ask too much of the former five-star recruit. Really, the Noles' transfer-heavy approach leaves FSU vulnerable to booms and busts: When the transfers hit, like Braden Fiske and Jared Verse (and maybe Thomas Castellanos), you get a legit contender; when you don't, the bottom completely falls out. Uiagalelei was a limited passer when he arrived in Tallahassee, and that's what he remained. Expecting him to carry a flawed team that wasn't able to reload after losing several crucial pieces was always foolish.
Avery Johnson isn't a transfer; on the contrary, this is his third season at Kansas State, and the Wildcats may have subtly shown previous starter Will Howard the door in order to hand the reins over to the hot-shot former five-star. But like Uiagalelei, Johnson's considerable physical gifts (a drool-worthy frame and legitimate dual-threat athleticism) also came with serious questions about his ability to throw the ball downfield. Those questions appear to have been answered in the negative: Johnson is in his second full season as the starter, and he's no closer to becoming a functional passer than he was when he took over as QB1 12 months ago.
What's more likely: That starting the season across the pond led these two teams to collapse where every other team handled things just fine? Or that the recruiting rankings were off once or twice, and two flawed quarterbacks got exposed as the rosters around them underwent serious attrition?