Column: As Ole Miss-Auburn shows, college football is also about cruel lows

The joy in college football is matched only by the stomach sickness.

Only on high seas do you see these swells of ups and downs.

Maybe it’s the familial bonds we forge with schools. Maybe it’s the ritual and pageantry wrapped in the sudden-death finality of a sport where every game not only counts, it hurts.

Who knows, but you know it when you feel it.

I felt it Saturday night after Mississippi’s unholy, gut-wrenching loss to Auburn.

I have no relationship with Ole Miss other than enjoying the times I have visited Oxford, working my way south from Memphis on Interstate 55 before ducking east on Highway 278.

In 2001, I sat in the Oxford home of former Ole Miss coach John Vaught, then 92, to hear him gush about the new Rebels quarterback.

“He looks to me like the greatest college prospect I’ve seen in quite some time,” Vaught said.

He was talking about Eli Manning.

Vaught coached Eli’s father, Archie, during a different era of Ole Miss.

Vaught led Ole Miss from 1947 to 1973 (with a couple of years off) during glorious, and inglorious, times.

He recalled receiving a 1962 phone call from President John F. Kennedy, who was hoping Vaught could ease the protests surrounding James Meredith, the first black student to be admitted to the school.

Vaught said Kennedy asked him if he could quell “his people.”

Vaught said he responded to the president: “Those aren’t my people.”

A visit to Oxford meant a trip to Square Books, and touring William Faulkner’s home, and rereading Willie Morris’ book “My Dog Skip.”

It meant visiting its heroes and its ghosts and understanding Mississippi’s underlying beauty, fears, phobias, complexes and guilt.

Ole Miss’ roller-coaster ride in recent weeks made only more sickening what happened Saturday night in Oxford.

Three weeks ago, after a win over Alabama, students tore down the goal posts and paraded them through town.

Last week, heartbreaking defeat at Louisiana State sent spirits spiraling, only to be uplifted Tuesday when the College Football Playoff committee surprisingly placed Ole Miss at No. 4 in its first rankings.

This defied other polls that had punished the Rebels for their LSU defeat.

A win over No. 3 Auburn on Saturday would solidify Ole Miss’ playoff position and set up an epic showdown against No. 1 Mississippi State on Nov. 29.

Mississippi appeared headed toward a last-minutes victory after quarterback Bo Wallace tossed a short pass to star receiver Laquon Treadwell, who raced from the Auburn 24 toward the goal line for the game-winning touchdown.

Just before crossing the goal line, though, Treadwell was dragged violently backward by Auburn linebacker Kris Frost.

Officials signaled touchdown as the Ole Miss crowd cheered. Treadwell, though, was clearly hurt as he rolled over in the end zone.

Auburn’s Cassanova McKinzy, just in case, pounced on the ball that Treadwell had let loose.

Treadwell was writhing in pain at the very time the instant-replay booth was ruling he had actually fumbled before crossing the goal line.

Auburn was awarded the ball as Treadwell was carted off the field, in an air cast, with a broken leg.

Auburn took over at the 20 and ran out the clock on a 35-31 win.

In the span of five seconds, and a couple of inches, Ole Miss lost its best player, the game, and probably any chance of winning the national title.

“Sometimes that’s the way it goes,” Ole Miss Coach Hugh Freeze said.

Rebels tight end Evan Engram said it proved “in one play it could be gone.”

It was one of the most ruthless turns of events in the history of college football.

The season continues, or so the mantra goes, yet it is hard to watch any team lose under those circumstances.

The general public tends to forget these inexplicable, localized, sad stories, but they are as important to the narrative as the last-second victories.

Texas fans remember the 2009 season’s Bowl Championship Series title game in which star quarterback Colt McCoy, who had never missed a start in four years, was knocked out on the first drive against Alabama.

McCoy’s right arm had gone numb after being hit and he couldn’t get the feeling back. He never returned and Alabama won the title.

It didn’t seem fair, but how do you explain these things?

Pittsburgh lost to Duke on Saturday because its kicker missed a chip-shot field goal in regulation.

The kicker’s name was Chris Blewitt.

Oklahoma has two losses instead of one because Michael Hunnicutt, one of the nation’s best kickers, missed a short field goal against Kansas State.

Saturday night, in Tempe, Ariz., Utah lost an overtime game at Arizona State when its kicker, known as “Automatic” Andy Phillips, missed two kicks on Utah’s first possession of OT.

Phillips pushed his first attempt but was saved when Utah Coach Kyle Whittingham called time out before the snap.

Phillips overcompensated on his re-kick and hooked the ball wide.

“Usually those kinds of situations are ones that I thrive in,” Phillips said. “No one is harder on themselves than I am on myself.”

Saturday night in Oxford reminded me of a November loss back in 2007.

Oregon appeared to be streaking toward a trip to the national title game when quarterback Dennis Dixon, the leading Heisman Trophy candidate, was lost to a season-ending anterior cruciate ligament tear in a Thursday night game at Arizona.

Oregon lost that game and then two more to end the regular season.

I walked out of the stadium that night in Tucson just as Oregon’s team bus was pulling away. Coach Mike Bellotti was sitting in the passenger side, front row, staring vacantly out the window.

Dixon was done, and so was Oregon’s season.

Every program has its own sob stories, and everyone knows college football is a tough man’s game.

But why does it have to be so cruel?

chris.dufresne@latimes.com

Twitter: @DufresneLATimes